Be both weak and strong

A Place of Healing, Wrestling with the Mystery of Suffering, Pain and God's Sovereignty 

by Joni Eareckson Tada

I knew I was watching too much TV and so I told myself it's a no-TV day today. I did after all purchase two books this morning and thought it'd be good to spend the whole afternoon and evening reading. 

It was a good decision. 

I'm now halfway through Joni Eareckson Tada's A Place of Healing and she already moved me to tears in the first five pages, and more as I went along. She has so much insight in the presence and love of God through her suffering, especially now even more as her body suffers in unbearable pain. 

She made me think more deeply on familiar bible verses that I'm now seeing in different light. 

One that strikes me most is from 2 Cor 12:9-10, "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me...For when I am weak, then I am strong."

We are usually ashamed and embarrassed about our weaknesses so much so that we rather hide and not talk about it. Here, Paul is not only telling us to talk about it but to boast about our weaknesses. 

To boast about something is to be proud of it, to gladly flaunt it. And the only way I think we can be proud about our weaknesses rest on the hope and suffering of Christ. 

With that, we become both weak and strong.

It is apparent what we need to do in church. We had our second CG session in church this afternoon discussing Timothy Keller's The Prodigal God. 

Someone shared about someone who stopped going to church because she felt so out of place in a church where everyone seemed to have such a good life, with successful jobs, with good and happy kids, whilst she is eking out a living and having challenges raising her own kids. 

We should learn to have the courage to talk about our weaknesses, especially in church, and to divert our focus to the reliance on God to sustain us. 

I really recommend you this book, if you are in suffering or if you caring for someone, especially now that the Kindle version is on sale. 

pearlie