Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NIV
Because of pride we view any faults and weaknesses we have as something to be hidden, covered over, or fixed. Through this Christian journey we are in the process of becoming more and more like Christ. To be human is to be weak. It’s our weaknesses that direct us to lean on God. Weakness remind us of how much we need God and his grace for us. And so like Paul we can actually boast about our weaknesses because then it is all so evident that it’s Jesus working in our life. It’s not “look at what I have done with my life” but rather “look what Jesus has done with my life.”
It’s the human condition to want to appear well. We want to take credit for everything and appear great in our own independence. We want to say, “weaknesses? Hah! I have none.” And so we create a I-can-do-it-myself mentality. Sometimes it takes the crumbling of our lives to really see all the ways in which we really are not that strong and all the ways we really don’t have control.
Through this really dark season of depression that I’m in I have really been utterly crushed. All my weaknesses have been brought out into the light. In the past I hid them and denied them. Now I’m actually talking about them and asking for help from God and from my Church family. I never would ask for prayer before, but now I’m hurting so bad I am asking for all my close friends to pray for me. I have realized that I can’t do this by myself anymore. I need God’s help. And really I never could do this by myself. It’s humbling to be crushed and to ask people for help.
In asking God to help me he has lead me to the people around me who have been so kind to me and not only that but they are actually eager to help me. God provides people in our lives to help us journey forward. Really we all struggle with the same things because we all face the same enemy who tries to get in our way and use our weaknesses to kill us. We all inhabit the same weak human condition.
In acknowledging our weakness we acknowledge our need for Jesus. The more holes we find in ourselves, the more Jesus shines through. God doesn’t use those who think they are strong; he uses those who know they are weak. You see it time and time again in the Bible of how God uses the one who is the least. It’s then that we can see God’s work and not the mere work of people. Scripture doesn’t point to that which a person accomplished but rather at that which God accomplished through such a weak person as them.
Through our weakness Christ Jesus is seen. In this dark time, I cannot dare say that I get through the day without Jesus. I am fully dependent upon him. He is the one holding me up. He is the one feeding me when I do not want to eat. He is the one picking me up when I cannot walk anymore. I acknowledge my weaknesses before God and he lifts me up.
Amazing to think that when we are weak “Christ’s power rests on [us].” It’s not that we cover over our own weakness, but that Jesus’ power covers us in our weaknesses.
This blog is an example. He used me, a very unlikely candidate, to create this blog and write about him on here. I am the least of these and he is using me. I have nothing great of my own except that Christ saved me.
