I watch a lot of football, and the playing field is no place for weakness. A game featuring big heavy sweating grunting men shoving each other, the weak end up at the bottom of the pile. Teams invest in massive weight and training facilities to avoid such weakness, and every coach wants the strongest guys in the league on their team.

Most of our world works this way. Nations build powerful militaries, citizens desire robust protection from crime, and we look for strength in our investments.

Which is why Paul’s comments on weakness slow me down. Paul wrote about a chronic physical ailment, one that constantly frustrated him and sapped his strength:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Turns out, the less I can do with my strength, the more I depend on the Lord. The less I shine in my (supposed) brilliance, the more luminous the power of God. When good spreads to others in the muddle of my weakness, then the Lord comes into focus as I fade.

When I am weak, than I am strong. Countercultural yes, but the ways of God usually befuddle the wisdom I’ve learned from this world. Christ’s power arrives through weakness. Not so good in the football scrum, but a much better way to approach life with one another.

2 Corinthians 12 in reading the Bible in 2023

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