One of the paradoxes of the Christian faith that I struggle with is strength through weakness. I do not struggle with believing it to be true, I struggle with putting it into application on a day-to-day basis. What does this look like in the daily life of the believer?
The reality is that success in most (if not all) areas of human activity require a great deal of applied strength, thought, and discipline; it requires strategizing, hard work, sweat, tears, and applying oneself. This is certainly true for the spiritual life as well in terms of the spiritual disciplines, however, we have to balance this with:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28–29)?
How do we reconcile these two realities?
This is one of the frequent themes of scripture: if you want to be strong, you must be weak. Said another way, God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27). This theme really comes through in Isaiah. When King Ahaz needs help defending Judah agains the Syria-Israel Alliance against Assyria, he sends a baby as a sign (Isaiah 7). A baby? Really? That’s the sign of strength?
In this same vein, when the people of Judah are awaiting their king under and oppressive Roman (and Greek prior to that) rule during Second Temple Judaism, God sends a baby who becomes a carpenter. Really? Our king is a table-maker?
The most obvious example is Jesus’ coronation day as the Messiah. He wears a crown of thorns. He pours his life out willingly. He is weak. He submits. He doesn’t fight. He tells Peter to put the sword away.
Weakness.
Through the submission of Jesus, through the weakness of the Jewish king, God’s power is manifest to the world.
This is the symbol of the cross. Salvation comes through raising the white flag.
So how does this work? On a very practical level, how do we become weak so that God can be strong through us?
I think that it comes down to faith. When we’re faced with temptation, an opportunity to sin, why do we know that it’s temptation? How do we know that we’re facing a sin-potential situation? BECAUSE THE HOLY SPIRIT IS WITH US. One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin (John 16:8).
Do you believe that if the holy spirit is there enough to convict us of sin and identify a sin-potential situation, that he will then withhold his holy power to assist us to overcome that sin?
If we know it’s sin, the Holy Spirit is with us; this means that he’s poised and ready to act, ready to strengthen us for holiness. He’s there to enable the believer for the righteous Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
I like to compare this to the Holy Spirit hovering over the chaos in Genesis 1 during the time of creation (Gen 1:2). The Holy Spirit was hovering in such a way that his posture indicates that he’s poised for action—ready to respond; prepared. He’s prepared for when God speaks, “light”. He’s prepared to carry out God’s plan to let his power burst into the chaos and make order, light, and life.
In much the same way, he’s poised over us and our circumstances. God is ready to speak light into our darkness. He’s ready to speak order into our chaos. However, it it through our weakness, our recognition that there’s nothing that we can do to save ourselves, that God speaks into our circumstances and the Holy Spirit manifests very practical, and real help in our time of trouble.
This is strength in weakness, at least part of it.
There’s also spiritual strength that the world sees as weakness – where the word “weakness” is used as a sort of inverted, or ironic term. To people who don’t believe in God, belief in Him is weak; they think themselves stronger and more independent. But believing in God requires humility, which allows God to work in us – without humility, which again some see as weakness, we don’t recognise our need for God, which means that we try to act on our own, which means we really are weak. The burden that unbelievers carry is all of their own troubles and sins; it’s a heavy burden indeed. If every day we give our burden of sin and desire to God, in prayer and study, He makes it light by showing us the way to change and hope. Even the everyday work of life becomes lighter because of the peace we have deep in our souls because we’ve given those troubles and desires to Christ; because we trust in Him, believe Him, and know that we are not alone. It’s a very practical strength.
Sorry for the delay in responding to this. A great additional thought indeed. Thank you!