Soulfood

Mike Emlet

All of us have daily challenges and struggles. For many of us those are on the periphery. For others our weakness and vulnerability are front and center. To be a Christian is not to become weak and vulnerable – we are weak and vulnerable because we are human. Scripture doesn’t grade or compare our troubles – each heart knows its own bitterness. Weakness is our common condition.

Weakness is the way of Christ. We like that in theory more than in actuality. Can’t there be another way?

How do I respond to coming face to face with weakness (incompetence, inability, frailty, helplessness)?

When we embrace our weakness we are made strong in Christ. The place of suffering and sorrow is where Christ is.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

[7] So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. [8] Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. [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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [10] 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.

The Corinthian church had been infiltrated by Christian celebrities of a sort – those folk that Paul calls “super-apostles.” They boosted themselves by denigrating Paul.

Paul gives a sanctified snarky response – he will boast in his weaknesses. He highlights the lowlights to show the power of Christ. The way of the cross is to make much of Christ, not himself.

The thorn is from a word that can also mean “stake” or “spike.” It’s not a minor irritant. We don’t know what it was. It involves Satan tormenting Paul. It was something that continually reminds Paul of his need for Christ. The suffering it caused wasn’t necessarily discipline for sin. But it was for his sanctification. In our most honest moments we admit we prefer comfort over consecration. But God is up to something purposeful and meaningful in the suffering we experience. It is not sinful to desire not to suffer and to work to alleviate suffering. It should drive us to plead with God for deliverance – as Paul does.

Jesus has something better for Paul than the removal of this source of suffering. He has greater things in mind for Paul by leaving him subject to this weakness. Jesus’s grace – the gift, the mercy, the kindness – becomes more personal to Paul. The grace is sufficient – it is what Paul needs day by day. And it is particularly for Paul – just as Jesus gives each of us the particular graces we need because he knows us and our needs.

And this grace brings perfection in us. It unites us to Christ. We are not alone in our suffering. Jesus goes before us, comes behind us, and is with us in our suffering. He carries our burdens, always doing the heaviest lifting.

Suffering is the principal way by which the power of Christ is imparted to us. We don’t simply suffer for Christ – we suffer in Christ, and through Christ, and with Christ. Christ’s power in us gives us endurance to live with suffering.

Burroughs: Contentment is that inward gracious frame of spirit “which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

The experience of strength and weakness are simultaneous. It isn’t that we are one or the other, or that someday we will arrive to a place where we are only strong. That’s not God’s purpose for us. God’s purpose is that we rely entirely on Him in every and any circumstance.

It is not that we feel strong when we are weak – it is that in Christ we are strong when we are weak. It is an objective reality apart from the way we feel.

We can never know how our weakness and God’s grace working in that will bring light and grace to someone else.

Knowing our weakness and turning to God in faith grows our faith so that it can affirm in every circumstance that God is sovereign and good. A strong faith grows from knowing weakness. Weakness is not bad. It drives us to Christ and deepens our relationship with Jesus.

The ultimate reality is that anything we perceive as strength in ourselves will fail. We are all subject to death which will bring us to the end of our strength. Only those in Christ will be raised to newness of life and strength beyond strength. So live in weakness to Christ!