A Grateful Weakling

Sunday I watched the conclusion of the Paris-Nice Cycling Classic. In stage four of the race, Alberto Contador rode away from the whole peloton while climbing a steep mountain, just as he had last year int the Tour de France. He is the most amazing climber in the world right now. As I said yesterday, when I'm climbing a steep hill I huff and puff a lot. While the cyclists around me are breathing lightly I sound like a steam engine. I've always attributed this to the fact that I've had two heart attacks, because I did it even when I was skinny.

When I had my first heart attack the doctors did an angiogram to discover where there would be a blockage in my arteries that was causing my chest pain. There was none. I was actually disappointed. You see, what I wanted was a quick fix. I wanted them to open me up, do a bypass and be done with it. Instead I discovered that I had spasms of the coronary arteries and would have to take medicine and live with it for the rest of my life. I felt like Paul with his thorn in the flesh.

Three times Paul prayed that God would take away whatever was the ailment that caused him concern. God told Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (v. 9). Essentially, God answered my prayer in the same way, although I didn't hear him speaking quite as clearly as Paul did. And I didn't receive God's answer quite as well as Paul did. Paul wrote: "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" (vv. 9-10). I remember being rather ticked at God that he wouldn't give me a "quick fix".

Over the past 26 years I've come to understand God's wisdom in allowing my weakness to remain. Eugene Peterson puts in this way in his Message paraphrase: "My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness." What a great thing to understand. God's strength is most clearly revealed when we are at our weakest. Because in those moments we have to depend on him. We've got nothing of our own to lean on. We can accomplish nothing on our own and must give him the glory.

If you're in a place of weakness, illness, weariness, hardship, persecution, or difficulty -- rejoice. Yes, that's what I said. Rejoice! Because it is then that God will reveal his perfect strength in you and through you, as he sustains you and uses you, even in your weakness.

Remember, the greatest miracle of all was accomplished in the moment of Jesus' greatest weakness -- as he hung on the cross. In that moment, he atoned for the sin of the whole world. God's strength was made perfect in weakness. He will do the same for you.