Strength, even from a human standpoint, is something which all men desire. The very thought of it opens up a vision of power to win good, of ability to resist and overcome that which would oppose good. Strength has generally stood for protection, from its stone fortresses with their great walls to keep evil without, to its stone prisons with their stout bolts and bars to keep evil within. Men have prayed to receive strength mentally, and have longed to possess it physically. Since, as in all other merely human effort, they have looked to matter to find what they desired, they have been finally disappointed; for strengthen things as they might materially, there was always the haunting fear that a stronger would come and thus prove their strength but weakness. With strength, as with other things, mankind has looked to matter to find what was never there.
Now what is ordinarily called strength can never satisfy, whether it seems to belong to person or thing, whether it claims to be physical or mental; for it is always limited, evanescent, unreliable. Associated as it is with the belief in matter, it apparently partakes of its supposed nature and is as unstable as materiality itself. At its best, it is but a poor counterfeit of true strength. But as there could never even claim to be a counterfeit were there not first a reality to be simulated, so the material sense of strength is but a vain effort to put forth an unreality in the name of that which is real and eternal.
Spiritual strength on the other hand is, in its final analysis, a quality of God, although like all divine characteristics it must be applied to human problems in the evangelization of human selfhood. When the Psalmist sang, "The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" he was wise enough to see that if he found his strength in God he would be lifted above all fear.
