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Devotionals 2002

Hard-Pressed
August 1, 2002By Ed Wrather

For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone 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 excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed - always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. - 2 Corinthians 4:6-9.

This morning on Good Morning America I watched an amazing thing a stutterer stopped stuttering after putting a device in his ear! The device is called the “Speech Easy Device” developed by Joseph Kalinowsky himself a stutterer and two others. The device tricks the brain into thinking that another person is speaking at the same time and when speaking in unison with others the stuttering is inhibited. Currently there is a 90% success rate with the device. Debbie Cook the mother of Wesley who stutters says, “It’s just our dream come true for him. Because we’ve tried everything we knew and would never really give up hope. We’ve always prayed there would be that something and we just can’t believe we’ve found it.”

Joseph Kalinowsky grew up stuttering and he was “hard-pressed on every side” because of it. Joe says he would pray every night when he was a child, “Take off my arm, God, because I know kids will tease me for not having an arm. But if I can talk the same as every other kid, that’ll be OK. And I’d get up and the arm was still there. And I’d begin to talk and the stutter was still there. And I’d turn up to the heavens and say you didn’t do it. I guess He had another purpose.” Joe eventually became a speech therapist at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina where with two other inventors the “Speech Easy Device” has become a reality.

In the life of Joe Kalinowsky and others affected by stuttering we see the value of persistent prayer personified. Years of prayer by those who stutter, parents of stutterers and others have now resulted in a miracle through human technology. But than that is what God delights in doing. He puts Himself through the Holy Spirit into weak earthen vessels, which is the treasure, the apostle Paul is writing about. Because of the treasure of the indwelling Spirit we are able to endure and overcome. “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” With the surrender of ourselves to the will and purpose of the Lord then through our earthly bodies the “life of Jesus” will be “manifested.”

Do you have a weak earthen vessel? Is your vessel “hard-pressed on every side?” In your weakness, in your inability may be the very thing that God will use to bring glory to Himself! Surrender yourself to God’s will and purpose and your weak earthen vessel is no longer worthless but a “treasure” that God will use to bring glory to the Lord and life to countless others touched by your life.


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