Don't row

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. — Ephesians 3:16

During a picnic on a scorching day at a Wisconsin lake, Ole’s fiancée Bess said how much she would enjoy some ice cream. So the young Norwegian immigrant gladly made a 5-mile round-trip by rowboat to bring it to her. When he returned exhausted with a container of melted ice cream. Ole told himself there must be a better way. He put his mechanical mind to work, and a year later in 1907, Ole Evinrude field-tested his lightweight, detachable motor for small boats. He married Bess, and when the outboard motors went into commercial production, she wrote the advertising slogan: “Don’t Row! Throw the Oars Away!”

Ole Evinrude was not a lazy man, but he understood the limits of human power. Each day we employ machinery to accomplish the tasks of life. But we often stubbornly rely on ourselves when we’re trying to serve God. In Ephesians 3, the apostle Paul wrote of a better way: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” (v. 16). Instead of self-effort, Paul urged believers to find strength in “Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (v. 20).

Don’t row! Receive and use God’s power. — David McCasland

And if my heart and flesh are weak

To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed He will not break,

But strengthen and sustain. — Whittier

READ: Ephesians 3:14-21

We can do whatever God wants us to do if we depend on His power to do it.

The Bible in one year:

• Isaiah 9-10

• Ephesians 3