Do you depend on your own strength? I do most of the time. Have you ever thought that your weakness can bring you hope? I struggle with thinking this. What would you think if I told you that you can still rejoice, even in your weakness? Why does the concept of embracing weakness seem so contrary to our logic? Let us look at what I have learned about my weakness.
I have spent most of my life being taught and believing that I can do all things. That I have the power to solve every problem and accomplish everything I want to accomplish. This idea suddenly changed completely when my wife Laura was diagnosed with major clinical depression. I then became even more hopeless when they included the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. I quickly figured out I was powerless to deal with the problem and there was no way for me to fix Laura.
I struggled for several years fighting my inability to help Laura get better and thinking I had the power to heal her. No matter how much I encouraged her, cared for her, loved her and comforted her she did not get better. After eight years of struggling, Laura ended it all by taking her own life.
During that time and after I struggled with thinking I could control my own life somehow, I have the power. I sought hope through myself. I believed I could pull myself up by my own bootstraps. Have you thought the same thing? I know and would quote passages like Philippians 4:8, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” (New King James Version) I would pretend I was relying on Jesus to get me through and sometimes I was, but probably not most of the time.
I would often read and quote Paul from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “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.” (ESV) Yet I did not really practice it. I practiced for the most part on self-reliance and my own power. Maybe I did not understand what Paul was telling me. Maybe I did not want to yield control of my life to the only source of power and hope. I am still not sure. I know I try to act out the truth found in the Bible but maybe it is not by trying that will get me there but by yielding as Paul describes in the rest of 2 Corinthians 12.
Paul shows by his own example that it is not by his own strength he is the man he is, it is by God’s power showing up in his weakness. There is a great quote from a sermon I recently heard that I believe will help me in my own prideful attitude of believing I can do it on my own and that somehow, I have some special power on my own. “Don’t fall in love with the illusion of power. Fall in love with the potential of weakness.” Pastor Troy Dobbs, Grace Church Eden Prairie. Hear his whole message. I will try with the help of the Holy Spirit to accept and celebrate in my own weakness and find true hope in His strength demonstrated in and through it.
Join me in allowing the Holy Spirit to help us to fall in love the potential of your own weakness. In doing let God’s power show through our weaknesses and bring us true hope. All we need to do allow that to happen is to first accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord then you need to ask the Holy Spirit to tame our tongue. This will allow us to bring hope as opposed to destroying hope. At the same time understanding that you will live eternally knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ and this what brings the greatest hope all because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfying the penalty for sins. His payment satisfies all my sins from the past, in the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because holiness shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here.
You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here.
eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazon or Google.
