Delighting in Weakness
When a season of weakness is upon us—and when we can’t make it go away with spiritual disciplines and prayer—we entrust our weak faith and feeble-feeling work to God.
Last year, my book, Deep Peace: Finding Calm in a World of Conflict and Anxiety, was published. In the year or so that has passed, a painful irony emerged: I have experienced much more conflict than ever. Almost daily I hear false, misleading or just plain malicious things said about me. This has been disorienting—even a bit depressing. My self-confidence is eroded to a noticeable degree. I am experiencing weakness.
I strive against such weakness. I pursue strength for my life and work. I keep my spiritual disciplines up. I have a spiritual director. I worship weekly and receive Eucharist with faith in its transformative power. I recently had a sleep study and physical exam. I am doing everything I can to sleep well and to, within the rhythm of Sabbath, work a moderate week. I stick to a diet. I exercise six days a week. And with all that, more than ever, I feel weak in my soul, spirit, heart and mind.
In that state, reading the novel Father Elijah, I came upon passages where one priest is exhorting another. They illumined truth to my heart:
Offer your sufferings to the Lord. He will use them as a powerful weapon to confound the devices of the enemy.
Father Elijah, 470
[God] rewards not for success, but for patience and hardship undergone for his sake.
No success matters as much as perfect obedience, for it is this which prepares the way for the action of divine grace in your soul.
Father Elijah, 417
Spread the Gospel; teach, feed, and protect the flock; and conform ourselves to the image of the One who carried the cross and died on it.
Father Elijah, 384
Over the past few days those passages of fiction led me to ponder biblical passages on weakness. Maybe the most profound one is Jesus’ words to Paul when Paul was prayerfully pleading to have a weakness taken away:
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
This does not mean we should seek weakness in order to find God’s power or to his feel his strength. To the contrary, it is Paul (Ephesians 6:10) who tells us to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. The Psalmist (29:11) says the Lord gives strength to his people. Isaiah (40:31) gifted humanity with these long-prized words: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
The biblical picture of strength and weakness seems to be this: we are to seek the Lord and his strength. But over the course of our lives, we will experience moments—maybe even eras—of weakness. When a season of weakness is upon us, and when we can’t make it go away with spiritual disciplines and prayer, we are to entrust our weak faith and feeble-feeling work to God, trusting that he sees, blesses and makes perfect the obedience that flows from weakness.
After quoting Jesus, Paul explains to the Church his response to suffering:
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10).
I almost believe it. Lord, help my unbelief.
I almost live it. Lord, counting on your power, I press on with my life and work in weakness.