Strength in Weakness

But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for strength is made complete in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9a (my translation)

This is one of the many passages I say are easy to preach, but not easy to practice. The problem with that line is that you may be preaching it wrong if you aren’t, in some way, practicing it.

I don’t mean that God may leave you behind or exclude you because you have failed to understand weakness. Note the “grace” in there. Often we think grace is a substitute for taking action. It’s not. It’s the only means toward effective action. I may be saved by grace, but if I go banging my head against the wall, it will still hurt.

I may also accept that I depend on Christ for everything, and still if I go trying to fix everything myself, refusing help, it’s still going to hurt.

I was reminded of that last week when I injured my lower back. I thought I injured my hip, but those who know say otherwise. I immediately went into fix-it-myself mode. First I waited to get medical attention because it wasn’t bad enough. Then, well, I ended up going to the hospital by ambulance.

I posted the following on Facebook:

I ended up taking an ambulance ride to the ER early yesterday for an injury sustained in caregiving for Jody. The injury was actually about a week ago, but kept getting worse until I was in bad shape. The EMTs couldn’t find any blood pressure at first, and when I told them I hadn’t taken my blood pressure meds they said, “Thank God! You probably would have crashed.” Then my blood pressure rebounded to very high, but they said it stayed in a range they’d expect for the situation.

In any case, the diagnosis is a strain to the sciatic nerve for which I have more pills to take in the next week than I’ve probably taken in my life up to now. I’m fairly weak and unable to make the walk to my office safely. (The hospital put an armband on saying I was a falling risk. I wish I could argue, but they were right.) I surprised them, I think, by refusing morphine, but they had said with the meds they were giving me the problem would begin to clear up in another half hour. I said I’ve been surviving this for a few hours now, I’ll wait for the steroids, etc to do their thing.

From my Facebook Feed.

Here are some things that have occurred to me about weakness over the last few days as I try to recover.

1. We don’t like to accept or admit weakness. In my case, this was shown as I tried to avoid medical care. Yes, I told myself I didn’t have time, but what I didn’t want to do was go get some orders from a doctor that I might even have to follow. A fate to be avoided diligently!
   I was sitting in my dining room, in serious pain, after I had nearly passed out in my bathroom. Do you want to guess what I was thinking? “I wonder if I could drive myself to the hospital.”
   I’m reminded of a aphorism I first heard in a military context: “After a certain point, quantity has a quality all its own.” Let me use something similar here. “After a certain point (which is probably behind you), strength has a weakness all its own.”
2. Even after we accept weakness, we don’t want to embrace the extent of our weakness. Having realized that driving myself to the emergency room was not an option, I immediately thought of friends. Who can give me a quiet ride to the ER? The friend I chose to call is a retired physician. After a couple of questions he said, “You need to call an ambulance and go that way.”
   Ouch! I am not old and infirm. I am not sick. I am not weak. I don’t need an ambulance.
   And then facts jump up and intrude.
3. Once we realize a weakness, we’d rather not ask for help. I encountered this in myself as my friend was driving me home from the hospital. I also needed to get some medications at the pharmacy. I started out with the idea of going by the pharmacy on the way home. It was only a little out of the way. Then I realized, weak again, that I couldn’t contemplate that ride.
   So, not wanting to ask my friend for any more help, I suggested he take me home and I’d get someone else to make a run later than afternoon. He had, after all, done enough!
   That was not his opinion. He dropped me off, took the prescriptions, got them filled, and brought them back to me.
   Lesson? You know more helping people and they’ll help more than you think.
4. Those of us who have leadership roles want to avoid looking weak. This can come in many ways. Sometimes we don’t want to admit we don’t know the answer to a question. Sometimes we don’t want to admit family problems. Sometimes we just don’t want to admit anything. And church congregations tend to jump on such weaknesses. Might I suggest reading 2 Corinthians 12? Paul had that problem. Paul chose to model weakness. Jesus had that problem. The disciples, and especially Judas, thought he should wield strength. He used weakness. Your ministry may be tough with admitted weakness, but it’s going to be real, by God’s grace.
5. Those of us not in leadership look for strong leaders to lead and protect us. This reflects our own lack of faith in “strength completed through weakness.” We preach about Jesus going to the cross. We talk about loving one another, but we believe that can only work while protected by strength, accomplishment, and yes, superiority. Bottom line, we don’t actually believe what Jesus said.

The church is, in so many ways, not a collection of the “good” or “righteous,” or of people who can claim superiority to those around them, but rather it is a group of people who are so wounded that we can’t even admit how wounded we are. We’re trying to get to the point where we realize that the great physician is there.

But that’s OK. The weakness is there. God’s gonna get you in the end!