I Am Weak

“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”

 (2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV)

You’re weak.

I’m weak.

We’re all just a bunch of weak humans.

We’re not special.

We’re not elite.

We’re not superhuman.

We’re really nothing but dust, dirt, and depravity.

I’m not writing to the masses on this one, so if you’re easily offended, you’ll probably stop reading. But, if weakness is something you’ve learned to embrace, welcome.

Confession: I despise “feeling” weak. I don’t like to feel physically weak, so I lift weights regularly. I don’t like appearing weak by “needing” something from someone. My pride can consume my convictions over things that require me to display weakness or any form of submission that resembles weakness from a cultural world view.

Though we’re all born weak and helpless, we live in a world that assumes we outgrow that weakness and helplessness. But do we? Obviously we grow physically and most don’t remain as a helpless infant, but we never truly outgrow our innate human weakness that marks us as a creation.

Oxford Languages defines weakness as: “the state or condition of lacking strength.” Similar words include: frailty, feebleness, fault, flaw, defect, deficiency.

I am frail. I am feeble. I am faulted. I am flawed. I am defected. I have many deficiencies. I am weak.

I am a created human. That means I have a Creator.

My great, un-created Creator is the One True God, The Alpha and the Omega, Elohim, El Shaddai, Jehova-Jireh, Adonai.

My Creator is Yahweh.

My Creator chose me in Him before He even created this world (Ephesians 1:4). My Creator knitted me in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). My Creator gives me each breath (Isaiah 42:5). My salvation came from my Creator and belongs to my Creator (Jonah 2:9).  My Creator helps me (Psalm 121:2). My Creator keeps me (Psalm 121:7-8). My Creator is with me (Isaiah 41:10). My Creator strengthens me (Isaiah 41:10). My Creator upholds me (Isaiah 41:10).

I am nothing without my great Creator.

I am weak without my great, wondrous, powerful, merciful, and strong Creator.

In a world that scoffs at weakness, I pray as a sister-in-Christ you relish in your weaknesses, knowing our sovereign and glorious God welcomes our weaknesses so His grace can shine with sufficiency.

In 2 Corinthians 12 we get to see a beautiful illustration of the apostle Paul boasting about his weakness. He starts out matching his adversary’s boasts about spiritual experiences by sharing he’s had visions and revelations from the Lord and was even caught up to the third heaven and heard things that cannot be told, or uttered. But even with this glorious “experience,” he ends with boasting in his weaknesses.

“On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me” (2 Corinthians 12:5-8 ESV).

The Lord sovereignly gave Paul a thorn in the flesh. This “thorn” proved to weaken Paul in some way. We’re not given exact details of this thorn, but many Bible scholars presume it to be an internal mental or emotional struggle, a particular temptation, a physical ailment, or a demonic harassment. But we really don’t know.

It doesn’t really matter what the “thorn” was, because we have the Lord’s answer to Paul when the Lord, in His goodness, chose not to remove this “thorn.”

The Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV).

My weakness has a purpose.

Your weakness has a purpose.

God’s power will be made perfect through our weaknesses—whether those weaknesses are spiritual, emotional, physical, circumstantial, or a particular sin we’re struggling with—we have the grace of our almighty Creator sufficing our weaknesses.

Like me, you’re probably taking a mental note of all of your weaknesses right now. I encourage you to allow God’s grace to shower you rather than shame or guilt with the lies of never measuring up. The truth is we weren’t created to “measure up.” We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. What better way to do that than to know the God Who Created you and all things? The more we know Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we trust Him. The more we trust Him, the more we can embrace our weaknesses as creation. The more we embrace our weaknesses as creation, the more we should acknowledge and ascribe glory to our perfect Creator Whose grace is radically sufficient for us and Whose power is magnificently perfected in our weaknesses.

I yearn to respond like Paul when weaknesses intensify and circumstances appear unsatisfactory in my life, and yet, the Lord in His sovereignty chooses not to remove these “thorns.”

“…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” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God.

Ardently His,

Jess Dennis