Author | Sophie Luo

For When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong

– Human Weakness versus Divine Strength

“…a thorn was given me in the flesh…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.” – 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

How can we be strong when we are weak? It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? Without a biblical perspective, it would be hard to understand this. However, in God’s kingdom, Christ has come to make things right, to turn things upside down, so it does make perfect sense when we understand God’s grace toward us and what it means to live humbly before our Creator God.

God’s Grace Toward Us

In this passage, the Apostle Paul was suffering from a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) – though Scripture never tells us exactly what this “thorn” was, we know that Paul was suffering from an on-going pain, and he prayed and pleaded with the Lord to remove the “thorn”, God didn’t remove it. Instead, God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

It would be a hard answer for most Christians to hear when we pray and ask God to remove an on-going pain and suffering, yet God’s answer is, “No, I will not remove it.” But we know that God loves us with an everlasting love that never changes (Jeremiah 31:3), so we know and trust that He must be up to something good behind this seemingly negative answer of “no”.

God says in Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We want instant satisfaction and immediate relief from trouble, sometimes God does just that for us by removing it quickly, but other times God says “No, wait, I will let your trouble remain for a while because I want to give you something much better. My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts; I will give you a blessing that is far beyond your imagination, I will give you Myself through this trial – a closer relationship with Me who is the source of all joy and comfort, the fountain of wisdom and peace. Then you will be content in all circumstances, even in your current suffering, your current ‘thorn in the flesh’. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

We can’t help but wonder: How does God show us His sufficient grace by making His power perfect in our weakness? What does that look like?

Living Humbly Before God

Have you noticed that when trouble comes, you often turn to your own wisdom and strength and resources to fix things and to deliver yourself? In our sin nature, one of our “default” modes is self-reliance: relying on our own powers and resources to do all things, control all things, accomplish all things, fix all things, etc. as if we are the one who can really do it. It’s not that we don’t love or trust God, but often times He doesn’t come to our mind first or we don’t live out that faith by trusting and relying on Him throughout the whole process of dealing with the challenges that we are facing. We might turn to prayer seeking God’s help in the end, but only after we’ve tried everything we could to “fix” the situation and failed miserably. Other times, we do turn to God first in prayer, but then right after that we turn to ourselves to be our own savior to get ourselves out of that trouble, leaving God completely out of sight.

When we try to be the “king” who rules over all things and controls all circumstances with the power to save (sometimes we don’t think we think this way, but we act this way), how can we see God’s perfect power in our lives? We cannot because in so doing we have pushed God aside to be our “audience” to watch us “manifest” our own power to “save the day”, instead of being the humble creatures that we are and lifting up all things to the Lord, waiting in expectancy to see Him move mountains and part the “Red Sea”.

Only when we know and acknowledge our own weaknesses and powerlessness, and humble ourselves before God, seeking His grace to help us in our trouble, and submitting ourselves to His good and perfect will in delivering us in whatever way that He pleases (i.e., “when I am weak”), can we begin to see His sufficient grace in our lives and see how He manifests His perfect power in our weaknesses (i.e., “then I am strong”).

In faith, Paul got this right away. He went from crying out to God in great distress to boasting gladly of his weaknesses, and he’s “content with weaknesses”, for he knew that “when I am weak, then I am strong, because the power of Christ rests on me in my weakness.”

There is another great example of this in the Old Testament. In 2 Chronicles 20, when facing a great army coming against the kingdom of Judah, Jehoshaphat King of Judah was afraid but he “set his face to seek the LORD”. Standing in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, he led the people to seek the Lord through a raw yet beautiful and heart-felt prayer, where he first acknowledged God’s sovereign control and rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and God’s mighty power that no one can withstand; then he laid out all the facts about what’s happening to them before God, recalling and “reminding” God of His covenant promises to His people; then he asked God to deliver them, acknowledging their weakness and powerlessness before this great enemy. In the face of great hardships when a dashed future loomed large, he humbled himself and turned to the Lord in faith, saying to the Father, “For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:1-12)

Matthew Henry summarized it this way, “This is a Christian paradox: when we are weak in ourselves, then we are strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; when we see ourselves weak in ourselves, then we go out of ourselves to Christ, and are qualified to receive strength from him, and experience most of the supplies of divine strength and grace.”

So, where are you trying to save yourself by relying on your own wisdom, strength, and resources, trying to control your circumstances today? Or how are you seeing yourself weak in yourself, and turning to Christ as the sovereign Lord and one true Savior and receiving divine strength and grace from Him to help you handle the challenges that you are facing today? Where is God calling you to turn to Him? In what weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, or calamities is God calling you to be content with for His glory as He says to you, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. When you are weak, then you are strong”?

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, praise and thanksgiving be unto you that I, miserable man, and though I were a thousand such as I am, could not withstand a single devil, yet, by the help of your holy angels, I do withstand them. There is in me not a drop of wisdom, while the crafty Evil One has a whole ocean full, yet shall he not know how, nor be able to harm me. My foolishness and great weakness put even his wisdom and power to shame. For all this, O gracious God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I owe gratitude unto you alone; for it is of your glory that you show forth your wisdom and power in my unworthiness, foolishness, and weakness.

– Martin Luther

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