When I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
The title of today’s word of encouragement may seem a bit strange. When it comes to our limitations and weaknesses, we tend to do everything in our power to minimize or eliminate them . . . or at least cover them up. To be sure, God’s gifts of wisdom and strength are viewed as assets, and these are the areas in life we work to increase and improve. But Paul taught that God gives both strengths and weaknesses, and they are to be stewarded and used for His glory and the good of others.
Today’s verse comes from the “thorn” passage (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to take away his “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan” that was tormenting him, and three times God refused. “My grace is sufficient for you,” God told Paul, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God dispenses both strengths and weaknesses to His disciples, and we must learn how to lean into both in order to maximize our service to our Lord.
Understand that Paul was not using the word “weakness” as a euphemism for “sin” in the way that our present-day culture substitutes syrupy phrases, such as “having an affair” for “committing adultery,” to paper over the offense of sin. In his letter to the Romans, Paul rebuked those who were boasting that their sin displayed the grace of God to an even greater degree (Romans 6:1-2). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul freely confessed that “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3). Paul certainly was not saying that he had come to the Corinthians in sin; no he was candidly admitting that he felt dramatically underqualified — that is, weak — in his role as a teacher and an evangelist.
The best way I know how to explain the difference between weakness and sin is this: Our weakness is given by God to cause us to turn toward Him and to depend on Him more; our sin turns us away from God as we depend more on ourselves. When we lean into our weaknesses, God’s power is put on display for all the world to see as we trust more in what God can do for us than what we can do for ourselves. Indeed, Paul said that “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).
Paul saw his “thorn” — his weakness — as a liability to His ministry at first, and he pleaded with God to remove it. But in time, he came to realize that God was using both Paul’s strengths and his weaknesses to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God. Now, if you are anything like me, learning to see weakness as a gift from God does not happen as quickly as it did for Paul. He asked “three times” for God to take it away; I sometimes still ask God to take my weaknesses away. But over time, I am slowly learning how to trust and depend more and more on God, and less and less on me.
When was the last time you considered leaning into your limitations for God’s glory and your good? That’s right; I said “for your good.” Paul said he was given his weakness to keep him humble, and that is one of the great blessings of our limitations. The more we lean into our limitations, the more God humbles us, and the more God humbles us, the more we are like our Lord Jesus, who made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:7).
When Paul said, “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2), he was not confining the word “trust” to our strengths. He meant everything God has given to us: our strengths and our weaknesses too. May the confession of our lives demonstrate our utter dependence upon God as we lean into our limitations.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 