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. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10, NIV 1984).
My Musings – When asked by a little boy on how he became a war hero, President Kennedy is said to have replied, “It was absolutely involuntary. They sank my boat.” No one seeks out weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions or difficulties. They avoid them whenever possible. When they come, delight is probably not the first reaction. And I suspect that Paul was not delighting in them because they came. Rather, I suspect that the delight was in having the strength of the LORD in his corner. Sometimes the strength to conquer and sometimes the strength to endure through His all-sufficient grace.
My Advice – How we respond reveals a lot about our character and spiritual maturity. Trying to conquer or endure the ordeals of this life solely through our own power only serves to demonstrate how weak we are to face such things on our own. For our greatest strength is so very deficient in comparison to God’s purely theoretical greatest weakness. Recognizing and admitting this is often difficult, but failure (refusing) to do so makes it difficult for Christ’s power to rest on us.
The Brew Is A Musing 