As usual, strength is "in." Join the fitness center, work out, eat right, take supplements, be strong. Then be self-reliant, capable, assured, accomplished, using your connections and abilities to get where you want to be. Overcome your weaknesses and conquer the world.
You hear this over and over again, don't you? What you don't hear is an encouragement to be weak. The closest thing to that is the emphasis on "servant-leadership," but notice that it is still "leadership."
What Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9 is truly counter-culture: "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." When did you last hear someone say, "Let me tell you about my weak points"? We think they are to be hidden, put out of sight, covered up. But Paul said he would boast about them.
The difference is Christ. Paul knew, and we need to also, that Christ's power rests on us in our weaknesses, not in our strength. Where we say, "I can't," Christ says, "I can." And as long as we say, "I can," Christ says, "I can't." It is not that He can't but that we won't let Him. We are like a child, unwilling to let a parent help. It is only when the child in weakness admits he can't that the parent, in strength, can help.
It's the same for us. Stay strong and you are weak. Stay weak and by Christ you are strong.
"God, help me be weak, to put aside my arrogant self-sufficiency, drawing instead on the strength of Christ. I can't, but He can."
Ecclesiastes 4-6, 2 Corinthians 12
You hear this over and over again, don't you? What you don't hear is an encouragement to be weak. The closest thing to that is the emphasis on "servant-leadership," but notice that it is still "leadership."
What Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9 is truly counter-culture: "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." When did you last hear someone say, "Let me tell you about my weak points"? We think they are to be hidden, put out of sight, covered up. But Paul said he would boast about them.
The difference is Christ. Paul knew, and we need to also, that Christ's power rests on us in our weaknesses, not in our strength. Where we say, "I can't," Christ says, "I can." And as long as we say, "I can," Christ says, "I can't." It is not that He can't but that we won't let Him. We are like a child, unwilling to let a parent help. It is only when the child in weakness admits he can't that the parent, in strength, can help.
It's the same for us. Stay strong and you are weak. Stay weak and by Christ you are strong.
"God, help me be weak, to put aside my arrogant self-sufficiency, drawing instead on the strength of Christ. I can't, but He can."
Ecclesiastes 4-6, 2 Corinthians 12
