One of my favorite ways to encourage myself when I'm down is to find a song that speaks to my heart, stirs my soul and lifts my spirits.  One of those is the Corinthian Song by Micah Stampley.  The song is based on the scriptures in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9



"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;"

Let's be honest, life is rough sometimes and when everything around you comes crashing down all at once it can certainly get the best of you.  Sometimes you gt discouraged, your faith wavers, you feel uncertain, you lose hope, or just get down right disgusted. In this letter to the Corinthians Paul was offering encouragement during times of uncertainty.  He told them look... I know we're troubled on every side but we're not crushed... we're uncertain but not in despair, we're being persecuted right now but God hasn't left us or forgotten us, we might be down but we're not destroyed... in other words, this isn't our final destination.  That's a pep talk if I ever heard one!

But the pep talk gets even better when you go to the scripture and read it in context... verse 6 is where it starts to get really good..

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

We're so precious that the great amazing God who called light out of darkness... shined His light in our hearts so we could know his glory through Jesus... but that's not even the good part... the extraordinary part is that we get to experience that glory and power in these little bodies made from lumps of clay... these earthen vessels.

So even during the time when life is chaotic and seems to be swirling and crashing all around us, we can still hope in knowing that we have an amazing God that won't allow those things to destroy us or keep us down for long.  That we carry His power on the inside of us and that is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.  We are mightier than we know!  More powerful than we realize!  Greater than we can fathom, even on our worst day.  In our weakness He is made strong.