Daily Manna · Day 355 · December 21
Strengthened in the Inner Man
“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.”
A man sits in his own driveway with the engine off and the house lit in front of him, and he needs another minute before he goes in. Nothing is wrong in there. It is that there is nothing left, and the people behind that door are the ones he most wanted to have something for.
Paul is on his knees when he prays this, and he is a prisoner while he does it, and the striking thing is what he does not ask for. Not release. Not that the pressure would lift, his or theirs. He asks for reinforcement in the inner man, which is his term for the person you are when nobody is looking, the part that wears out first and that nobody sends flowers for.
Look at the measure he attaches to the request, because the preposition is doing real work. According to the riches of his glory. Not out of his riches, which would make it a withdrawal from a large account. According to them, which makes the size of the supply proportional to the size of the giver rather than to the size of the need. A wealthy man giving out of his wealth might hand over a coin. Giving according to it is a different transaction entirely.
Which is the difference between a loan and a transfer. You are not being asked to locate this in yourself and you will not find it there.
So pray Paul's prayer with your own name in it before you get out of the car tonight, and ask for the inner man rather than for the circumstances. Then give the first ten minutes inside the house to the person you have had nothing left for.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 355 is Vision and Restraint (Proverbs 29:18).