Weakness vs Strength

Given the choice of what I want between weakness or strength, I would go with strength every time.  I am super-competitive – too much so. I want to be strong in every single thing I do. But I am not!

I have many weaknesses. Early in our ministry in the second church I pastored, the Lord showed my wife Karen and me the same painful truth He showed to Paul.  Listen to his testimony.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10  And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

This weakness for both of us became many of the things Paul described in the above passage: sometimes a reproach, always a need, at times it even stirred up persecution.  It constantly held us in distress. We could not fix it or heal it. We prayed, far more than three times, for God to take it away.

Reluctantly, to be honest, we finally accepted the answer the Lord gave Paul.  And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”  Even publicly, we embraced our weakness and the promise of the Lord to make us strong.
After years of struggling and hurting with this weakness, we found that God began to lead people to us who were also struggling with the same or similar weaknesses and distresses.  They came to us because they knew of our battle and pain. Out of our weakness, God developed a ministry to others to show them the strength of the Lord made perfect through our weaknesses.

What has this to do with the reasons our Loving Heavenly Father would allow the Coronavirus to so ravage our planet?  Because …
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• Adversity reveals our weaknesses, and
• Adversity gives opportunity for God to demonstrate the sufficiency of His grace, and
• Adversity shows how the Lord´s strength can be the end result of our weakness.

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Lord God, while we continue to pray that You will remove this plague and heal the afflicted, until You do, while we are still weak, let us be strong in the power of the Lord.