My Perfect Weakness

"I will believe You are strong enough
in my weakness God be lifted up
and I will sing lift Your praises high
Lord be magnified You make all things new
I will believe"

These are the lyrics to a song we sang in church last night. After a week of being very frustrated by the different areas of my life where I struggle, this song came as a huge encouragement to me! I'm tired of being weak. I get frustrated when my actions don't line up with the way Scripture tells me to act. There are some things I wonder if I will struggle with until I die. I just can't seem to get them right. They are my weaknesses.

Can anything good come from me having weaknesses? Surely God can't use me unless I'm perfect! All through Scripture, our gracious God gives us examples of how He was glorified through the weaknesses of His children. Take Moses for example, when God called Moses to go command the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go from Egypt, Moses immediately focused on His weakness.

Then Moses said to the LORD, "Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." (Exodus 4:10)

We know how the story turned out. God glorified Himself through Moses by speaking through someone who couldn't do it by himself. No one could have said that Pharaoh let the people go because Moses was a good persuader. He wasn't. It was his weakness.

What about Gideon? When God told Gideon to take his army and defeat the Midianites, Gideon's response was similar to Moses' response to God.

Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” (Judges 6:15)

The story of what God did through Gideon and the Israelite army here is so amazing. God took the Israelite army that was already the weakest and lowest in number, and decreased the number of men even more! With just 300 men, God worked in them to defeat the Midianites by simply blowing horns and smashing jars! Because of all the noise, the Midianite army was startled and ended up being so disoriented that they killed all of their own people! God took their weakness and turned it into a way for Him to get all the glory! He let them know through their weakness that they could boast only in Him! The stories are all throughout history and Scripture where God works through the weaknesses of His children so that He can get all the glory!

But what do we do? We try to hide our weaknesses. We don't want anyone to know that we aren't perfect. We wouldn't dare let on to others that we don't have it all together. They might discredit us if they knew what we struggle with! But did you know that in Scripture we are commanded to boast about our weaknesses?!

And 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. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

We aren't suppose to hide our weaknesses, Scripture says we are supposed to boast about them and boast about them gladly! I don't know about you, but in the culture we live in where perfection seems to be the standard, it's not an easy thing to brag about the areas in my life where I struggle. But as I look at the examples God has given me of the amazing things He can do through someone who is willing to admit where they are weak, and as my eyes are opened to see that me having weaknesses is one way God can be glorified, I realize that there is so much freedom in boasting about my weaknesses gladly so that the power of God can dwell in me! It's incredibly encouraging!

So the next time I get a bad attitude that I can't seem to shake, I'm going to realize it's a weakness and instead of beating myself up about it, I'm going to ask God to glorify Himself through it. Once we overcome our fears of letting people know what our weaknesses are, God will be able to exalt Himself in our lives even more, and we will be less tempted in boast in ourselves!