The Wilderness of Weaknesses

I've wanted to write about this topic for quite some time, but I just haven't felt like I fully grasp it yet. 

Actually, I still don't. On the developmental arc of faith, it seems like the expert super boss level of spiritual formation. Maybe we can wander through this together.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

My power is made perfect in weakness?

This contradicts everything we know about power. Power shores things up. Power looms over enemies with a threatening presence. Power is defensive. Power is strategic. Power is made known. Power is bigger, better, bolder. Power calculates to precision. Power is prepared. Power has the upper hand. Power has the vantage point. Power has no weaknesses. If it does, it protects them from exposure at all costs.

Right?

My power is made perfect in weakness.

Made perfect. 

Not "my power is complementary to weakness," or

"my power comes through at times of weakness," not even

"my power eradicates weakness completely."

My power is made perfect in weakness.

Perfect can be a highly charged word. Other translations use the words, "works best."

My power works best in weakness.

Oh, now there is something. 

As our worldly understanding of power alludes to above, our natural inclination is to treat our weaknesses as faulty parts from which we must separate or cure. Where we hide and protect our weaknesses, or try to cut off, avoid, and defend against our weaknesses, God says something different.

God says, "that's the part I want."

That is the part where my power works best.

I suspect it isn't just because God's Almighty power fits like a key into our most dysfunctional parts, although I also think that's true.

I suspect it is more about surrendering our control to work in conjunction with his will. To some of us, even the word surrender triggers a signal we interpret as weakness.

But surrender is exactly what God asks of us.

"But God," we argue, "don't you want how smart I am?"

“How productive I am?”

“How strong-willed I am?”

No. What God is after is the most intimate, inhibited, inner most brokenness in all of us, the one that is deeply afraid of being rejected, being shamed, being exiled from the greater sense of belonging. The one that fears failure, disappointment, uncertainty, unpopularity, transparency, imperfection…whatever your particular shade of insecurity is.

Sometimes I think the metaphor about God leaving the 99 could also be about leaving our individual 99 strengths in pursuit of the one thing we most want to hide from him, the one thing we most want to deny about ourselves. The one thing we think is too broken, too unreliable, too damaged. The one thing we think he cannot possibly use.

He wants that one.

Because that one is the one that needs his love the most.

That one is the one where his power works best.

That one is the one for which the entire gospel was written. That one is the one that Jesus carried with him to the cross. 

We can do many great things in the name of Jesus, because he tolerates our time spent learning and internalizing the greater lesson he wants to show us. 

But the greater lesson is that we come to do many things IN Jesus and where the power of Jesus works best is our weaknesses. If we do not give him our weaknesses, then our weaknesses will inhibit us from the full potential of God’s purpose for our lives. Not because they are weaknesses, but because our inhibition about our weaknesses becomes a barrier to seamlessly responding to and acting on God's will. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Our inhibition works like a roadblock to the Holy Spirit because it is an area that we have taken back possession and control for ourselves - we have relegated it back into the limited realm of our power.

And remember, the declaration is that God’s power works best in conjunction with our weaknesses, which means if we do reach the courageous point of giving over our weaknesses to God, that doesn’t mean now we get to just lay down and do nothing.

More often what this looks like is God drawing confidently enough to use a sharpie marker over a map, a straight line from point A to point B, indicating where he wants us to go. 

Then, we look at him like he's crazy. Even he laughs a little because he knows how audacious the path seems to us. It’s a journey that bypasses all of our strengths and heads straight into the areas where we feel most insecure.

We survey the road ahead and it looks like wilderness. Unruly, unpredictable, unmitigated wilderness. Jagged rocks, angry waters, unfamiliar terrain, hidden predators that lay in wait ready to pounce us should we falter.

But he holds out his hand and reminds us, "My power works best in weakness."

And so, we go.

Together.