SurrenderSample

That Christ’s Power May Rest

The great apostle Paul, one of the most outstanding human beings to walk the face of the earth, gets to testifying a bit in this reading. He’s had sensational experiences, and is hesitant to even repeat them. As he recounts in verse 4, he was, “caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things.” 

Paul is clear that one danger of such intimacies with God is pride. To counteract that temptation to conceit, Paul (v7), “was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” 

Now, Christianity is not fatalism. We don’t just take everything that happens as if from God (fatalism is the belief that ‘all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.’). Neither are we stoics. We don’t keep a stiff upper lip and silently suffer whatever befalls us (stoicism is ‘the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint’). 

No. Paul acted as a Christian. And this is the example for us: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me” (v8 NIV). 

There is nothing noble or inherently virtuous in pain, in and of itself. It’s not necessarily God’s will for us. And we have a greenlight from Paul to plead with the Lord to take it away from us. 

That said, Paul received an answer from the Lord (v9): “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 

The challenging bit for us today is Paul’s reaction to the Lord’s answer. And it epitomizes the posture of surrender that we’re to exemplify in relation to Jesus (v9,10): “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” (NIV).

Implicit in this assertion is recognition that none of this is about how great Paul is, or how great we are. Paul’s lack, our weakness, within the context of submissive relationship with Jesus, only goes to highlight Jesus’ wonder and glory. And so rather than trying to hide it or underplay it or exaggerate our own skills or abilities, we can follow Paul’s example and highlight our weakness, delight in hardships, celebrate our difficulties, so that Christ’s power can rest on us.