Strength Made Perfect

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV

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Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16 NIV

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I'm in a season right now of trying to rebuild my consistency with spiritual disciplines, particularly my time in prayer and in God's Word. For a pretty lengthy period of time, I have been allowing shame to convince me that I need to hide from God because he wouldn't accept me because of some sins I had fallen into and was struggling to escape from.

This morning, I was hearing that same voice. I'd had difficulty waking up to spend time with God, ended up sleeping in for an hour, and had very little time left before I needed to leave for work. I decided to go for a walk so I could pray out loud, just so I would have done something rather than nothing, but the moment I started walking I found I couldn't bring myself to start praying. The words just weren't there.

I started my prayer by telling God that. I started reflecting aloud on why I was finding this so difficult and realised that because I hadn't gotten up to do my morning with God in the way I originally planned to, I now felt as though I had missed my opportunity and was unworthy to bring myself before Him, because I had failed.

God brought a passage in Hebrews, which I've included above, as a reminder to me that my weakness doesn't disqualify me from coming before Him. Jesus struggled too! He understands the struggle of exhaustion and how it can make it difficult to engage in relationship with the Father. Because of that, He isn't looking down from heaven, condemning me for struggling with it myself - He is advocating to the Father on my behalf, presenting Himself in my place so I can come to God and be accepted by Him as a beloved child who has been forgiven and made clean.

As I was realising this and reflecting on it, Paul's words from 2 Corinthians also came to my mind. Growing up as a Christian, I have heard the phrase, "His strength is made perfect in our weakness," more times than I can remember, but it always felt like some vague, untethered concept which nobody could explain to me. This morning, though, I feel like it clicked into place for the first time.

In 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul states very clearly that Jesus Christ crucified IS the power of God in the lives of Christians. So, we can rephrase God's declaration to Paul as, "Jesus' crucifixion is made perfect in weakness." However, Jesus' crucifixion is already a finished work, so how can it be made perfect? The act itself cannot be, but our understanding of it can.

This morning, I experienced weakness in myself. There was a way I wanted to engage in relationship with God and I found myself unable to do it. When I chose to bring that weakness to God, however, He used that weakness to clarify the truth and beauty of what Jesus accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection, and how that affects me directly and personally. In turn, that revelation gave me courage and strength to continue pursuing God, healed me of my shame and self-criticism in that moment, and gave me a gratitude for who God is and what He has done.

For us, strength very easily becomes pride and self-reliance. But weakness forces us to acknowledge our insufficiency. From that point, we can either hide in shame or submit our insufficiency to God. If we choose to hide, we will enter a consuming and destructive cycle that will tear our lives apart and most likely hurt the people around us. But if we choose to present it to God, He will deepen our revelation of Christ crucified - He will show us that our sins are forgiven, we have been made new, and we have been made children, so we can come to Him any time with everything, all because of His grace and mercy in sending His Son to die on a cross for us. That revelation is all the power we need.