When I think of gifts, visions of beautifully wrapped gift boxes in shiny red paper and sparkly bows usually fill my mind. Especially now in this Christmas season, gifts are everywhere. I envision myself opening the box and finding little goodies tucked neatly away in layers of tissue paper. The joy of a wonderfully crafted gift especially for me is exciting! I have to admit I am a lover of receiving a great gift from someone I love, especially when I know they put thought into it and it exceeded my expectations. I am even more so excited when I can give a perfect gift to someone I love. I feel like I need to control the explosion of glee I experience when I watch someone open a gift that I worked really hard to give them.
I think God feels the same way. He LOVES to give. It is His very nature to give unequivocally and without restraint. Giving is not just something God DOES, it is something He IS. And that’s great news for us. But sometimes the gifts God decides to bestow on us don’t seem as nice and pretty as a delicately wrapped box complete with fancy ribbons and sparkles. Sometimes the gifts God sends us seem more like curses than gifts. That seems extremely cynical to say but when God gives a gift like hardship, for example, we rarely see the value or beauty of that experience, much less view it as a gift. We curse it every day. We devise ways to get out of it. We grow weary of enduring it day after day. What I can tell you is this: gifts like hardship are INVALUABLE to our growth and development. It’s the only way we can develop our spiritual muscles. Just think of a baby that is not yet crawling or walking. If the mother always carried the child everywhere and never let it struggle to roll over or pull itself up it would never develop the muscles required to crawl or walk.
There are other gifts that God graciously offers us as well. One that I am intimately familiar with is the gift of weakness. It seems God handed me that gift at a very young age, although I fought Him to accept it. Most of my life I endured this constant feeling of being weak in certain areas and I beat myself up over it. Determined to overcome my weakness, I tried harder. My efforts drained me and left me feeling void and overwhelmed. And angry. I found myself loathing in self hatred and angry with God for making me weak in those areas. Why couldn’t I walk past a cookie and not eat it? Why did I always start things and quit after just a couple of weeks? Why did I always run away from problems instead of face them? And most importantly, why did I constantly struggle with depressive, negative thoughts? I became so acutely aware of my weakness and inadequacy that I finally landed on my knees begging God to help me. I didn’t want to be a weak person anymore.
He led me to Paul’s description to the thorn in His flesh:
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
This thorn in my flesh was the very thing keeping me connected to God in such an incredible way! It served to keep humility in check and required me to keep seeking Him. God did not want me to despair over it; but rather realize that it was gift that He gave to me for my benefit. He didn’t wrap it in beautiful paper and ribbons but in an indescribable way it became beautiful to me. He taught me how to stop beating myself up and trying to change things that could not be changed. I am still learning how to accept my weaknesses and cling to His strength and power. The gift of weakness is probably the most powerful gift God can give us. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but it we let it work within us we will get to experience God’s power flowing through us.
I’m reminded of the story of Gideon and his few hundred men that God had whittled down from thousands of men. They were going to face their enemy, which boasted countless numbers MORE than the Israelites. God told Gideon to only take the men with him into battle that He would chose. It ended up being only 300 men against thousands of enemy soldiers. To make matters worse, God wouldn’t even allow the Israelites to fight. They were told to just stand there and break pitchers in their hands at the sound of the trumpet. Can you imagine??? Standing there in complete weakness, outnumbered, no real weapons with just a pitcher in your hand? That’s how God told them to go to battle, in complete and utter weakness. Exposed. Vulnerable. And with a very strange battle plan.
God wanted to show Himself mighty through their weakness, not through the strength. And that’s exactly what He did. He showed up when the Israelites obeyed and He confused all of their enemies and sent them retreating in fear.
He wants to do the same for us. What is your greatest weakness? God wants to show Himself mighty through it and defeat your enemies. If you are willing to listen and obey He will fight the battle for you with very limited resources in the most hopeless of situations. This has been so true in my own life. God is truly developing a ministry through the very things that I thought would destroy me. The weaknesses I always despised and tried to cover up are becoming my greatest ministry platforms as He is helping me develop resources to help others with those same struggles. Your weaknesses are not meant to destroy you; they are only meant to awaken you to God’s incredible power that can flow through you.
The Gift of Weakness
