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.

Our Strengths Can Be Our Weaknesses

"Consensus: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: 'I stand for consensus?'"

Margaret Thatcher

When our health insurance provider cancelled our insurance on the day I had an expensive medical test, my patient beloved spouse rose above his limitations to advocate for the company to take responsibility and fix the problem they created. This required him to go against his natural inclination to listen to others and accommodate their points of view.

When the customer service representative told him to call his human resources department, Pete went against his natural inclination to not act decisively and advocate for his own agenda. Now, it's not like we need to bring out a band to celebrate his tenacity - we do not have a human resources department at Northstar Community - which helped Petestand firm.

The point is this: our strengths can also be our weaknesses. Could this be you? What strengths do you have that are also your weaknesses?