There are a lot of persistent challenges that are weighing us down these days. When we are persistently weighed down…   we soon become worn down and vulnerable. Mental health experts are frequently and forcefully reminding us that it is an opportune time for conditions like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and relationship struggles to emerge.

For all of our faith, accomplishments, resources, support network, and positive outlook, times like these remind us that we are still fragile. We are hurt. Deep down there is still a profound brokenness in us. Nobody wants to be fragile. Our culture shames weakness and vulnerability. We are compelled by a need to be strong, self-sufficient, and fiercely independent.

Sure, these character traits do project a certain kind of worldly strength, but as this ‘overcomers’ theme has revealed week after week, the world cannot deliver on its promises. Persistent struggles, surprise challenges, and the burdens we bear in the midst of them will sap us of our worldly strength sooner or later.

Paul knew the secret to living with this weakness while growing in another, far superior, kind of strength. The strength that comes from actually rest our weakness upon the strength of God in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul is describing a ‘thorn in his flesh’. We don’t know what it was specifically, but we do know that Paul experienced it as a persistent struggle, a burden, a weakness. And so, Paul interprets Paul’s weakness in light of his relationship with Christ and God’s strength:

Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)

We too can be strong in our weaknesses. We too can continue to bear the persistent challenges and burdens of these days. The power of Christ dwells in us no less than it did in Paul. The grace of God is sufficient for us no less than it was sufficient for Paul. God’s power continues to be made perfect in our weakness.