Positive Faith in Scripture: Strength for the Weak

Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the creator of the ends of the earth.

He doesn’t grow tired or weary.

His understanding is beyond human reach,

giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted.

Isaiah 40:28-29, CEB

I blame everything on culture and I’m going to try to stop doing that because it’s lazy. But maybe I’ll start tomorrow. Our culture teaches us that we shouldn’t show weakness, that strength is a virtue, and that strength and weakness are opposites. We’re also taught that some people are strong and some people are weak, as opposed to something like: everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

The latter seems more accurate to me. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Everyone’s strengths should be celebrated and nobody’s weaknesses are a problem.

This seems to me to be closer to the biblical view of strength and weakness anyway. In scripture, weakness is inevitable. Everyone will experience it. And, it’s not a problem. God can work with it and he can work with it. He has enough strength to spread around such that his plans will never be held back by our weakness (or our perceived weakness, or our perceived lack of strengths).

God doesn’t hoard his strength either. It’s not something to boast about or lord over humanity. It’s something to be given and shared so that we will have all that we need when we need it.

Weaknesses are not shortcomings- they’re little signs and reminders that we both need God and community.

Together, we have all the strength(s) we would ever need.