What will it take to make you weak? It’s a good question to ask, and one that really defines what you think the Christian life is all about. What does it mean to you to follow the Way? And if you do it well, how do you end up looking?

II Corinthians 11:30 says, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” Why? II Corinthians 12 goes further and says, “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. 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.” That passage may be about persecution mainly, but how much more does it apply to those things we hardly ever admit to eachother? We’re screwed up people, all of us, and I think I can speak for the human race, especially with its history in view.

I Peter 5:5 “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ ” Substitute the words “proud” and “humble” with “strong” and “weak” - our pride doesn’t allow us to admit weakness. Our humility is that we are weak to the last man and woman.

I wrote this in an email today: “I don’t like people to think of me as weak: I want people to think I’m strong. I hide my faults and try to work on them in secret. I’m not really an honest person about my failings, and when I am it’s at my lowest points when I’m my weakest and I need someone else to lean on. And even then I hate myself for looking weak to that person. Why is that?”

I think I know why; it’s because I’m by nature a proud person who likes to look like I have it all together. But I don’t, and neither do you. The fact that we wear masks itself is evident that we’re weaker than we want to admit. It’s hard to take off a mask, to apologize, to admit fault, to confess sin (even to God!), and all those other things we don’t do often enough.

At the end of the day we all think of ourselves as islands, little kingdoms that we rule, where we patch the crumbling walls with our own pitiful spit and clay. And of course when those walls tumble down I realize this much: when I am weak, God is strong. Not the other way around. God’s strength is not displayed in my victorious “Christian” life where my demons have deserted me and I sing lustily with the organ and smile at my friends over coffee and crumpets.

Of course it doesn’t end there, does it? God’s strength is perfected in weakness, and my weakness isn’t the final word in the matter. Christ’s weakness is. If he was tempted at all points like I am, and if he has empathy because of his own human frailty, who else should I lean on? And in what context? To rephrase the saying, we all lean together, or we all fall apart.

Dan (There, I’ve said it. Now I can sleep.)

Tags: scripture