How Weakness Disciples Us
Delacroix, Christ on Lake Genesaret, 1854
Weakness hit me hard over the past few months, especially since being sick with the flu and developing a long and painful case of pleurisy (inflammation of the inner lining of the lung), which made it difficult and painful to move, even to breathe.
I had to ask for help for a lot of things. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t lift more than a few pounds. Every time a friend asked if I was feeling better, I had to reply “no,” which isn’t what anyone wants to hear when they’re rooting for your recovery.
For the past month, the pleurisy has kept me from doing my daily physical therapy. That’s significant because I do it religiously to manage the chronic pain and symptoms of my scoliosis. So, it created a snowball effect of just feeling really crappy for weeks without any end in sight.
Some days I handled it like a champ. Other days, I was grumpier than I’d like to admit.
Thankfully, today, I’m getting better.
This whole journey has me thinking a lot lately on what it means to welcome weakness as a spiritual discipline—and as spiritual fruit. I wouldn’t have asked for this past month, but sometimes the Lord allows experiences like these to get our attention, to teach us something, to refine us a bit.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, that when we are weak, then we are strong. That “God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.” I asked the Lord to teach me about this at a deeper level, because man, have I felt the reality of my weakness and limitations lately.
Today, the daily Psalm I came to in my prayer time was Psalm 72, a beautiful prayer for the king of Israel. It asks the Lord to bless the king and cause the king to be the kind of ruler that the Lord desires. It asks for the attributes that the Lord has revealed to his people about himself to be represented in their leader, so that the community can experience the fullness of justice and righteousness.
What does this have to do with coming to terms with weakness?
It was verses 12-14 that struck me. The following can be said of God, and the longing is that it would be said of the earthly ruler too…
“For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.”
The statement here is that a righteous king will embody the heart of God in caring for those in need. Of all those who receive God’s attention, those in need who have no other options are at the top of his mind. He is near to them. And a righteous king is too. He doesn’t help them to boost his PR, and he doesn’t patronize; he considers their lives precious and valuable—this is reason enough for intervention.
To be in need, to be weak, is to be in the perfect position to receive help, strength, care, and all the resources to meet the need.
So, the reality of weakness is reframed with this perspective: we are all of us weak. We are, all of us, poor and needy. God’s strength is found in those who are self-aware about their weakness, not having convinced themselves they are strong already.
Independence, strength, power, self-sufficiency are seen as virtues in our world. But in Kingdom, it’s flipped.
When we think we are strong, or seek strength as the ultimate goal and prize, we reject the help and support that is readily available in God for those who know they can’t help themselves.
Psalm 72 reminds us that God is eager to help those who need it. We have only to accurately identify ourselves as belonging in that group: the weak, the poor, the needy.
In an unexpected way, I am grateful for my physical challenges over the past month. It’s reminded me of which group I’m actually a part. It has highlighted where I’ve allowed the norms of society to inform what I consider as normal in my life. It’s always refreshing to come home to my own lack and to come home to the Shepherd of my soul in whose care I “lack nothing” (Ps 23:1).