Weakness

“My grace is sufficient for you for my power is perfected in weakness”  2 Corinthians 12:9

Weakness – My God is the God of the sick.  “I don’t feel so good,” said my daughter.  She had the flu.  Her body struggled to maintain health against the virus that wanted to disrupt normal systems.  That’s a pretty good picture of this word.  We’re sick.  In most of the occurrences, astheneia is about illness.  It’s a description of an unhealthy human being.  By extension, the word comes to mean weak and unable.  But the imagery is someone who is lying in bed, ill and feeling awful, unable to care for himself. 

Is that the kind of picture you have of yourself?  Or do you think of yourself as vibrant, healthy, energetic and capable? 

“The strong ones have no need of a healer.  I have come to the ones who are sick.”  Jesus (Matthew 9:12).

So what are you?  Are you strong – and in no need of Jesus?  Or are you sick? 

“Father, open my eyes today so that I may truly see the sickness of my soul.  Let me peek into the recesses of my being with Your vision so that I become aware of my own disease, the agenda of my self, striving against Your goals and purposes because I seek my own glory.  Father, I know I am sick.  Send Your Son to me.  I need healing.  Cut through the pretense and the defense, the rationalization and the rebellion and heal me, not so that I may be strong, but so that I may be the channel of Your glory.  Keep me reminded that this story is about You, that my recovery is about You, that my health in body and soul is about You.  And I will forever praise You, my God.  My healer.”

Perfected in my weakness.  Isn’t that exactly what the crucifixion is all about?  My sin called out to the healer.  He came to take the disease on himself so that I could be made well.  By his stripes we are healed.  God’s perfect plan found its fulfillment in my utter inability.  This is God’s way – the way of weakness.  When we finally embrace that truth, God’s glory abounds.