weakness.
Well… I don’t know about you, but these last few months have been hard. I don’t think I have ever been more mentally drained and emotionally fatigued in my entire life. It’s crazy to think that in the beginning of this year, we had NO IDEA just how hard 2020 would hit us. And for some of us, it has beaten us down.
There is a lot of hurting going around our country these days. With drinking, depression and suicide escalating since we have been in quarantine, I would say there are a lot of hurt people. Protests, violence, tragedy and fear is circling our country and sometimes there just seems no way out. There are people who are broken, weary and weak.
One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 12:9 which says,
9 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
I could remember reading that verse everyday when I was going through the trial of my life a few years ago, but it wasn’t until just recently the Lord started whispering it back to me. As I said earlier, this season has been a tough one. A lot of tears, growing, maturing and rejoicing.
I started to wonder why God’s power is made perfect in my weakness; in my weak moments and tough trials. We see all throughout scripture where God demonstrates His infinite power in parting the Red Sea, fire shooting down from the sky, in the storms and raging winds, there is honestly no limit to His power. I’ve personally seen miracles happen and bodies being healed and demons being casted out… I know there is nothing God can’t do because He is all-powerful. But here in this verse, we see that God’s grace is sufficient and His is power is made perfect in…
Weakness.
Brokenness.
Weariness.
Paul had been praying and pleading to God to take away this thorn in his side (whatever that may be). But God simply didn’t. God could have delivered Paul and said to him, “My power is made perfect in my deliverance.” He could have said, “My mighty deliverance is sufficient for you.” But he didn’t.
Instead, he left Paul in his crippled state and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Weakness.
God’s power is greatest when we’re at our weakest.
And what we need most in our weakness is God’s sufficient grace. Period. In other words, what we need most is NOT a chance in circumstances. Rather, we need to know that God’s grace is sufficient for the very circumstances we find ourselves in. This is so backward from how the world operates.
We don’t like to be weak. We like to be strong and show off that strength. We don’t like to show the world that we are crumbling or going through things. I’ll go as far as saying that even the church says that we shouldn’t go through pain and trials because we are “Christians.” This is so opposite from God and who He is. His power is made perfect in weakness. Why is this?
Why is God so insistent on using weaknesses to show off His strength?
It means God gets all the Glory.
If I could sustain myself and pull myself up with my own boot straps, then all the glory would go to me. I can’t sustain myself though. I wasn’t the one who pulled myself out of depression and heartache, that was God.
I may not know what you are going through right now, but this doesn’t have to be your battle.
1 Peter 5:7 says,
7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
God’s grace is enough to sustain us. God’s power is made perfect in weakness because it ensures that He alone gets all the glory.
If God’s grace alone is sufficient to sustain me, I can’t take credit for sustaining myself. God does it all and we should boast only in Him.
2. It shines a Spotlight on God’s Power.
One of the great lies I’m tempted to believe is that I’m sufficient; that I can do this alone. That I am solely adequate for everything. For life, for marriage, for working, etc… It’s when I start going through trials and situations do I suddenly see how wrong I was about that.
You see, when you are going through dire circumstances, it forces you to depend on God. When we are pushed up against a wall, we have no other option but to rely on God’s amazing grace. And it is through that moment do we see His power put on full display. Not mine. Not yours. But God’s power.
3. It highlights the Glory of God’s Deliverance.
In the Bible we see that God loves to deliver His people especially when the stakes are high. Just when you thought He wouldn’t pull through, He does.
We see in Judges 7 that God doesn’t let Gideon use 300,000 or 3,000 men. No, instead he tells him to use 300 men to beat he Midianites, making the odds of victory so unfathomably small that only God could bring deliverance.
in 1 Samuel 17 we read that David, a small shepherd boy with just a few stones and a sling shot defeat the mighty Goliath, a giant. Only God could be the reason why David won that day. God’s power is made perfect in weakness because it shows that God and only God can deliver. We don’t have the power to rescue or deliver or save. But God’s grace is sufficient to do all those things.
And last but not least…
4. It forces me to Trust in God Alone.
In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 Paul writes about one of his darkest moments…
8 We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. 9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.
God allowed Paul’s circumstances to become so bleak and so desperate, that he felt as if he had received a death sentence. From Paul’s perspective, death appeared to be imminent.
Why would God let things get so horrifically bad? Maybe that is a question you have been asking this year. Why has this happened in my life? Why is all this chaos and turmoil going on in our country right now? Why hasn’t anything changed?
Circumstances like this happened in scripture as well. Why would God let Isaac get all the way to the altar? Why would He let Daniel actually be thrown into the lion’s den rather than rescuing him beforehand? Why would He allow all those horrible things to happen to Job and not intervene?
God wants his people to know that He alone is their hope. God leads me through the Valley of the Shadow of Death so that I’ll trust in him alone. So that I’ll cling to his sufficient grace. So that I’ll give up the dumb charade that I can do it alone.
Let’s not fall into the temptation of trusting in our own understanding rather than God’s sufficient grace.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says,
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
When I lean on my own understanding, I’m failing to trust God, whose power and ability to deliver are far beyond my understanding. When I trust in the sufficiency of God’s grace, I truly can be anxious for nothing.
Charles Spurgeon says, “Let us lean on God with all our weight. Let us throw ourselves on his faithfulness as we do on our beds, bringing all our weariness to his dear rest.”
You may be going through hell right now, but the solution to weakness is not a stiff upper lip or the ability to hold it all in and act like nothing has happened. It’s to lean on God with all our weight – to throw ourselves on the one whose power is made perfect in our weakness. Then, and only then, are we strong.