When We Are Weak, He is Strong
If it’s your job to delegate important tasks on a team, do you choose a member who is weak? Or do you generally choose the person most qualified in knowledge, skill, and experience and leave them to it? It’s perfectly acceptable and expected to do this in our daily lives. But have you ever noticed that the ones who are chosen by God to lead His people and preach His word aren’t always the most learned, the most willing, or the most objectively “qualified?”
Now that’s just silly, some may think. We want things to get done efficiently, done fast, and done well. If we’re going to give an important task to someone underqualified, we should at least pair them up with someone who knows what they’re doing. Evenso, God has His way, and we humans have ours – and they’re as different as heaven and earth.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
So let’s understand why God works in ways that we, as people, normally wouldn’t. And while doing this, try to consider things from God’s perspective as the Creator.
The Purpose of Choosing the Weak
Choosing the Weak Glorifies God
Throughout each era of the Bible, God chooses people to carry out His will on earth. Noah, obeying God’s command, built the ark and warned people of the coming flood. Moses, with God’s guidance, led the nation of Israel through the desert to the Promised Land, and Joshua completed the work by leading them into that Promised Land. Jesus testified about the fulfillment of the Old Testament, established a new covenant with believers, and died on the cross for the atonement of our sins.
During his ministry, Jesus chose certain people to also teach and task with spreading God’s Word. And as Jesus was about to ascend, he tasked his disciples to spread the gospel to the whole world. In short, those who are chosen by God are tasked with teaching and spreading His word to everyone. But what kinds of people does God usually choose for this task?
God’s Strength Shines When We are Weak
Let’s look at an explanation from the Apostle Paul, when he was praying to God about a certain hardship he was suffering.
…“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Here the apostle Paul writes about how he will boast in his weaknesses but not in himself. We see that despite his weakness, Christ’s power rests upon him and makes him strong.
What were these weaknesses? In Romans 7:15-25, Paul discusses two laws waging war in his body – good and evil. His mind that is a slave to God’s law, and his sinful nature that is a slave to sin. A body of death that he seeks rescue from.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.
Paul struggled with sin as all the rest of us do. He battled daily with his own will versus the will of God, and also suffered countless other hardships while carrying out the work of the gospel. Think about the task that was given to Paul by Jesus: preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles – people who had no connection to Jesus or God, people who have their own idols or religions – but he was to go and spread the gospel to as many as he could.
Throughout the Bible, we see God choose many who could be considered to be weak, even by themselves, to do His work. Why is that?
