For when I am weak...

2 Corinthians 12:8-10
Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Most Christians would be familiar with these words of Paul. It sounds simple and easy, but it's not.

I know how is it to be weak. We have our own degrees of struggles and pain, our own degrees of weakness. I do not experience or know your struggles nor do you mine. It is therefore unprofitable for anyone to compare, to belittle the pain of others or God forbid, to be glad that we don't have it as bad as others. We face our own struggles. We know out own struggles.

And Paul says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Paul's context of strength is without a doubt the strength of God. It is only in our weakness that our flesh, our self-dependence is subdued for God's strength to finally work in us.

However, when reality strikes, it does not seem so easy. I can describe and explain how I am weak, but find it hard to tell you how I am strong. Yes, I have faith but it seems weak in the arduous pain I feel. Yes, I have the grace of God but I succumb to self-pity and self-worthlessness. I do not feel strong, I feel weak.

But praise be to God and Jesus Christ my Lord that it does not depend on how I feel. It relies on the very utterance of God. When he says when we are weak, then we are strong, it shall be so. Nothing we say or feel is going to deny it. The only requirement is our surrender to him and to take him at his word, he is trustworthy.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. Amen.

pearlie