Being weak is the path to God
Being weak is considered a disgrace in our society, a world that worships the powerful and stands in awe of bullies.
We hate feeling weak. The single Christian comes home from work frustrated. We watch the news and feel helpless. At night our own problems overwhelm us. We can curse our own inability to change things, or we can take that colossal leap of faith and trust God.
Trusting God feels like a terrible risk because it means giving up control. Immediately we imagine God shipping us off to Africa to the missionary field or turning our cherished routine upside down. What can we do?
Take a deep breath.
The entire focus of the Bible centers on one thing. Story after story teaches the necessity of depending on God. It's then that lives are changed and miracles occur. Trusting God takes weak men and women and makes them strong.
Let's see how that happens.,,
Being weak leads to salvation
If you're a Christian, you learned early on that you cannot earn your salvation by doing good works. First, how many do you have to do? Second, what about the sins you keep committing no matter how hard you try to stop? It's like trying to bail out a boat that has a gushing leak in it.
And if you're not a Christian, you're either wearing yourself out trying to follow all the rules or you're doing anything you please—at the cost of a sickening emptiness inside.
Human weakness is the problem. Most religions focus on doing. Christianity focuses on being. Doing keeps us in control, and we all like to be in control. As long as we're doing, we can keep track. We may not know how many good deeds are required, but we're sure we're making headway.
Being, on the other hand, means living in a relationship with Christ: He is Savior, we are the saved. He is the Sanctifier, we are the ones being made holy. He is God; we are not.
All of us dread admitting our weakness. Only when a person admits how weak and helpless they are can they be willing to receive Christ as Savior. Arrogant, self-made men and women don't turn to Jesus.
They're confident they can get through life on their own. What appears to be independence-suicide instead transforms into unprecedented freedom. That's why Christianity calls it "the New Birth."
The formerly weak person becomes a channel for God's power. Striving for salvation ends. Jesus did it all on the cross and we can rest in that.
More power needed
After you're saved—and that comes through total dependence on Christ's sacrifice 2,000 years ago—you discover something shocking.
You still sin.
When we become a "new creature in Christ," our weak, sinful nature remains. Oh, we may sin less than before, or we may sin differently, but we still sin. It's one of the afflictions of the Christian life.
This is discouraging. We want to please God. We want to show others Jesus has made a dramatic change in our life, but we still stumble and fall. Some people call it backsliding, but the truth is we are saints saved by grace, not our own goodness.
We may go a few hours or even a day or two without trespasses, but the only person who ever lived a sinless life was Jesus. You and I are not Jesus.
So our weakness not only forces us to go to God for salvation, but it drives us to Jesus for daily living. We have to lean on him, and lean heavily, for the rest of our life. The moment we enter heaven, our sin-nature disappears, along with our desire to ever sin again.
Meanwhile, we need help every day. God provides that through the Holy Spirit, who lives inside every believer, always ready to lead us away from temptation and to enable us make godly choices.
If it's a sign of being weak to depend on the Holy Spirit, it's also a sign of wisdom. The spiritually mature are not bothered by dependence. In fact, they recognize it as an indispensable gift. The more we rely on God, the better life becomes. Our petty ego falls by the shore when we cling tightly to this lifesaver.
Seeing weakness clearly
Society, and even some factions of Christianity, have a flawed perception of strength. Fueled by "manly" pursuits like sports, trucks, action movies, and high-powered business, advertising promotes the idea of a rugged individual who bulldozes their way through life, crushing every obstacle in their way.
The world associates weakness with being a weakling, the worst insult in western culture. But God's Word says every man and woman on earth is weak. People who agree and confess their need for God are the successful ones.
There is no wisdom as great as asking God to take control of your life.
The Bible guarantees you'll be in for criticism, ridicule, and shunning when you follow Jesus Christ. The irony is that in the Kingdom of God, it's the weak who are truly strong. Even Jesus never did anything without relying on his Father God.
How fitting, then, that God gives us the courage to shrug off society's disapproval. The way of Christ, the path of the humble servant, is the key to victory. It's what led the apostle Paul to say, "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 12:10, NIV)
