Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Notice the small but important shift in this verse: be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Not your might. Paul isn't handing out a pep talk about digging deep and finding inner reserves you didn't know you had. He's pointing somewhere outside yourself entirely.
That's a relief if you've ever run out of your own strength — and everyone eventually does. Self-reliance has a ceiling. There are situations that outmatch what any of us can generate alone: grief, fear, exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. "Try harder" stops being useful advice long before the hard part is over.
This verse offers something different from more effort. It's an invitation to draw on strength that isn't manufactured by you at all — borrowed, not built. Whether or not you believe there's a source like that available to you, it's worth noticing that this is a fundamentally different kind of strength than the self-help version most of us default to.
If you're tired of relying only on yourself, it might be worth exploring what it would even mean to draw on a strength beyond your own.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.