Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – weakness is not to be hidden but embraced.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NLT
[7] So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. [8] Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. [9] Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. [10] That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Observation
Strength in weakness – the upside-down Kingdom of God. Strength, power, are things that seduce us and many of us strive to have and to hold. We find our identity in them. They produce in us pride that elevates self and looks down on those who are weak. Climbing up is not the way of the kingdom it’s lowering down. Servant not served. Weak, not strong. Broken not together. Loved without cause not because. Everything in the kingdom challenges and is opposite to the ways of the world. Yet I strive so often for the world’s ways? The why to this is disturbing to me.
God doesn’t answer my prayers. For those who are upset by this God did not answer Paul prays either. Paul prays for the “thorn” to be taken from his flesh, but God knows that it enables Paul to be weak, and this enables Paul to receive the greatest of all gifts – Gods grace and power. So Paul takes pleasure in his weakness, he boasts about his “thorn” that makes him weak. We don’t what his thorn is, but I sure know mine. God doesn’t fix everything in me. He wants me to walk with my weakness so I can fall into his arms of grace and strength.
Application
I will stop avoiding, hiding, running from my weakness. I will embrace them in my walk with God for they keep me in his grace and strength. I see in my weakness how much I need His grace, forgiveness. I see in my weakness how much I need His uncaused love and how beautiful it is. I see in my weakness just how ordinary I am and how wonderfully He works life through me. My weakness reminds me of my need and levels the field of humanity before me when I want to elevate myself above others. I love my weakness when I see what and where it brings me too. So I will embrace my weakness.
Response
Thank you that you do not judge my weakness and condemn me, rather you work through my weaknesses. Thank you that you do not demand any kind of moral or personal purity or perfection, you don’t require me to get it all correct, but rather you invite me to stay connected. Thank you for a life that involves and embraces weakness. I can live that life.
Meditation
Meditation truth – I take pleasure in my weaknesses.
Consider:
How much do you hide your thorn, your weakness, rather than embrace it before God?
How do you see weakness?
JOURNEY DEEPER
