Strong When We’re Weak (Pt. 2) — Morning Devotions

Subscribe to Morning Devotions podcast

Strong When We’re Weak (Pt. 1) — Morning Devotions

From an early age we’re taught to conceal our vulnerability lest we get hurt. So what happens as we grow up, we learn to hide our weaknesses. We don’t want people taking advantage of us. So what we do, we play this game of covering up our inadequacies. After all, we’re told we should help ourselves, that we can do anything we want. All the answers we’re sure to find in ourselves. But of course, the amazing truth is that we can discover God’s amazing grace, and that’s all we need actually, because his power is made perfect in our weakness, not always in the ways that you’d first expect.

When I am weak, then I am strong

And the story is told about a little boy, a small boy who was trying to lift a stone that was much too heavy for him, and his dad walked by, saw him struggling there, and said, are you using all your strength? And the little boy said, indeed, yes, I am. And the father said, Well, no, you’re not really. You haven’t asked me.

Now isn’t that the key, asking God for His help, particularly in our time of weakness? How much of our own weakness do we keep locked up inside because we think there is no one there to help us, or we think that other things are more important and that we don’t really matter. It was Hudson Taylor, the great missionary, who once said all God’s giants were weak people.

What’s so good about weakness actually from God’s perspective, because I like to suggest that weakness is the place where God’s might is seen in all its strength, and I think one of the classic examples from the Bible is Gideon. And if you read Judges 6 from the Old Testament sometime, you’ll meet Gideon, who was sort of hiding away from the Midianites. He was in a wine press, scared, frightened. And the angel of the Lord approached Gideon in one of the most ironic verses of the Scripture, and the angel says, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior, mighty warrior – yeah, sure, Gideon, he certainly was not a mighty warrior. In many ways he was weak. He was timid. But in his own words, in Judges 6:15, Gideon says, How can I rescue Israel? My clan, he said, my family is the weakest one, and everyone else in the family is more important than I am.

But God was determined, of course, as he always is, and asks Gideon to deliver his people from the Midianite oppression, and he takes an army of 32,000 to do the job. But you know God hadn’t finished. In order to demonstrate the power of God, he took it from a position of weakness, and God whittles away this army to 10,000 and then to 300 people. And from that relatively small group of people, God delivers his people. So it’s quite an amazing story, and I think a good story to illustrate how weakness is actually turned into strength.

When Jesus was crucified, many people thought that he was a lost cause. He was a champion for the poor and the oppressed. But here he was, snuffed out dead at 33. But 2 Corinthians 13:4 from the New Testament says, although he was weak when he was nailed to the cross, he now lives by the power of God. We are weak just as Christ was, but you will see that we live by the power of God just as Christ does.

Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by

Jesus taught with words, but he even taught greater and deeper lessons by his example. In other words, he stepped into the sandals of a desert dwelling Jew, a manual laborer, a Roman subject with no rights to speak of. But here he is, Jesus, the prince of the universe. And he gave all that up almost in a sign of weakness to teach us what we need to do. He relinquished his strength, and as the Bible says, he was crucified in weakness. But of course Jesus loves us, and I think it’s a great lesson.

Let’s Pray

Well, Lord, there are many lessons to learn today, but thank you that there is the fact that God uses us as weak people, and we thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.