Strength through Weakness

As you reflect on 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, which phrases grab your attention? For me, they are Boast … gladly about my weaknesses… and …delight in my weaknesses. I’d understand it if Paul had said: “Endured my weaknesses” or “Pushed through my weaknesses.” No, he was unbelievably glorying in his multiple weaknesses.

That’s counter-cultural in most countries I’ve been in. Strong, powerful people are admired; weak folks are pitied.

What are your weaknesses? How are you dealing with them? To understand Paul’s testimony about finding strength through weakness, we need to uncover what weakness means, biblically and practically.

Weakness from a biblical perspective sometimes refers to a lack of strength, physically. Samson lied to the temptress, Delilah that if people tied him up, he would become as weak as anyone (Judges 16:7). Nehemiah’s opponents were intimidating him by suggesting Israel’s hands were too weak (Neh. 6:9). More commonly though, the Bible is referring to metaphorical weakness—expressing our need, with the attitude of the first Beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit … (Matthew 5:3).

Does that describe you? Will you express your moment-by-moment need for God’s abundant grace? If so, you are in good company. You are in fellowship with people like Abraham who said, I am but dust and ashes (Genesis 18:7), and King Jehoshaphat, We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you (2 Chronicles 20:12).

“Weakness,” says Sam Storm, “means any experience or event that requires incessant, conscious dependence on the strength that God supplies.” It’s incessant, not a once-a-month matter. It’s daily. Moment by moment. It means we show up frequently at heaven’s door. Asking, then asking again. It’s also conscious—not just a vague feeling, but a deliberate expression of dependence – telling God out loud, or in your journal, or under your breath that you are sunk if God doesn’t come through on this.

That’s what Nehemiah did. When faced with tragic news that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and God’s people were demoralized, he fasted and mourned and prayed, for days (Nehemiah 1:3-4).

If you have one or more hurtful thorns at present, then express your weakness to God right now, and run into his always adequate arms of grace. As you do, according to 2 Corinthians 12:9, Christ’s power will come and rest on you (literally, ‘pitch its tent on you).

Excerpts from The Point of Your Thorns: Finding Purpose in Your Pain

By Rowland Forman