The Power of Weakness
TRUSTING JESUS WITH EVEN THAT
Embrace your strengths!” “Overcome your weaknesses!” These are common mantras, and they’ve infiltrated everything. When you’re in a job interview, for example, you’re supposed to list your weaknesses by turning them into hidden strengths: “Yeah, I’m not really a person who is good at talking to groups of people, but it just means I’m excellent at listening and paying attention to details!” It’s not very often that we are told to accept them, or better yet, to exploit them. But this counter-cultural idea is what God wants. To Him, our weaknesses serve a specific purpose and are not to be covered up or ignored. Otherwise, we’ll end up wasting His plan for them.
God gave us weaknesses partly to keep us from becoming prideful and conceited because it means we have to rely on Him instead of upon ourselves. “God opposes the proud, but favors the humble” (James 4:6, NLT). He also gave us weaknesses purely so He can demonstrate His strength. Rather than resenting Him for the weaknesses we have, it is imperative that we recognize that they’re meant to be used for His purpose, not our own. After all, you can’t experience the strength of God until you are willing to be weak. We have much to learn about that from the Apostle Paul:
“Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10, NKJV)
“God wants us to acknowledge our weaknesses with humility.”
God doesn’t expect us to just glibly accept our weaknesses. After all, that’s not what the Apostle Paul did. He struggled through it, with God. But when He understood that God had a purpose for them, he accepted it as His will. Understanding that your weaknesses are part of His unique design for you is incredibly freeing. And while He can and may take some aspects related to your weakness away, He may also choose to not take anything away at all as He did with Paul. In the end, there are reasons that God made you the way you are that you might not be able to understand at the moment, or ever.
God’s perspective is far different and more complete than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9), and He never makes a mistake. That helps to explain why He uses people who trust Him with their weaknesses rather than those who think they can take on everything by themselves i.e. their motto being grin and bear it. That’s because by using the weak and lowly things, He is able to showcase His power and wonder in a way that confounds the status quo of the world. Take the example of Nick Vujicic1 who was born in Australia with no arms and no legs. He struggled with his physical limitations greatly while growing up, even to the point of being suicidal, but today he’s a global traveler spreading the hope of Jesus Christ and the power that comes from Him, not himself. It’s encouraging to look at the life of a guy who, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. He is a living, breathing example of what it means to live life for the glory of God.
Instead of dwelling on what we can’t do, we are to do what God specifically designed us for, which will always include things we’d rather not do. Despite a constant “thorn in his side,” Paul demonstrated acceptance of this limitation when he moved forward in the ministry he was given. Even though he was told no by God when he asked for it to be removed, Paul remained faithful to his mission and relied on Jesus to meet him with the strength he needed. Paul’s weakness was a constant reminder that he needed to depend on God for everything, and that’s the point. Jesus calls us to recognize His power and take hold of what He’s asking us to do because without Him, we “can do nothing” (John 15:5).
The world tells us that only the strong survive, and value is placed upon those who are self-reliant. We are taught to look to strengths as a source, and not to disclose our weaknesses to others. But God wants us to acknowledge our weaknesses with humility because He always comes through in ways we can’t imagine or even understand right away. So rather than trying to hide your weaknesses behind your strengths, aim to know and walk with the Creator who made you, knows you, and has an amazing plan for what you consider a weakness. Here’s the thing: it’s actually the catalyst to showing the world His power.