What is your reaction when you feel weak?

I hate to break this to you, but you are not invincible. In fact, odds are you aren’t as strong as you think you are in your mind. 

Why? Because you’re human. And part of being human is being finite, which is a way of saying… weak. 

Now, if you read that statement and immediately get offended and start thinking about all of the ways that you are really strong, then this article was written specifically for you. You aren’t weak in the sense of being insignificant, worthless, and useless. But you are weak in the sense of not being perfect or able to hold your life together on your own. You are weak when compared to the strength of the God of the universe. 

It’s okay to feel small in comparison to Him, because even though we are small and weak in comparison to Him, He still calls us by name, saves us through His Son Jesus, and desires to know us better than we know ourselves. We are worth so much to Him that He was wiling to pay the ultimate price for us. So even though we are weak and small in comparison, we are valuable and loved in His sight. That’s powerful. And that’s where our self worth and identity have to begin. 

So let’s go back to this idea of weakness. We all have weaknesses. We all have things that trip us up and pull us away from the full and beautiful life that Jesus desires for us. We all have things that remind us that we aren’t good enough, and that reality hurts! 

But… what if I told you that’s the whole point? 

Paul has some absolutely incredible things to say about weakness in 2nd Corthians. Let’s read this together…  

6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:6-10

Wow. Let’s just break this down together, shall we? 

Paul starts in verse 6 by essentially saying that he could boast if he wanted to (because let’s face it, Paul did a lot of incredible things for the Kingdom of God) but he chooses not to because he doesn’t want anyone to think more about him than they need to. Some of you need to internalize that message and digest it into your system as a way of life. But he doesn’t stop there. 

He goes on in verse 7 to introduce this idea of a thorn in his flesh. Paul had something in his life that tried to stop him in his tracks from following God well. Paul had something poking at him making it hard to ignore every single day. What was it? When did he get this thorn? What did this thorn look like? I strongly believe that it remains unnamed for a reason. 

You see, if Paul’s thorn had a name, comparison would steal the point.

If we knew what this thing was that Paul was in an ongoing battle with was, we wouldn’t learn very much from it. All we would do is begin to compare whatever our thorn (weakness) is to his. If ours was “worse” than his, then we’d count ourselves out from being used by God and say, “Man, what I would give to have that thorn. Lucky Paul! Of course Paul could fight against that thorn, but mine is so much worse I don’t stand a chance!” Which is a lie. But also, if the thorn seemed way bigger than ours, we’d compare that too and say things like, “Paul had a crazy big thorn to fight against. And because the struggle was so big, God used him in a significantly big way. My struggles are so small. I must be so weak compared to Paul. I might as well give up the fight.” 

But we don’t know what the thorn was, do we? We just know that even Paul had weaknesses. We know that even Paul had something that he wanted to rid his life of. And we do know his conclusion in verses 9 and 10.

That God’s grace is all that we need. That God can use our weakness to use us for His glory. That maybe we actually need to feel the point and the pain of our thorn sometimes, because it will drive us back to the foot of the cross where we are humbled by what Jesus did on our behalf. 

What’s the point of weakness? To make us strong in dependance on Him.