Made Perfect in Weakness

2 Cor 12:9
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

In His sermon on the mount, our Lord said "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." and His mother said "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." in her Magnificat. It is in God that we live, move and have our being and without Him we can do nothing. Part of the Christian life is recognizing God as our source of life and strength and turning to Him as such, especially when we recognize trial and tribulation in our lives. It is ungodly pride that says "I can beat this myself" when adversity comes, and ungodly despair becomes the result when we fail to overcome that adversity on our own and on our own terms.

Christ Himself said that in this world we would have tribulation. Paul preached that we must endure much tribulation in order to enter into the kingdom God. This is for our benefit, for Peter writes that those who suffer according to the will of God are to commit the keeping of their souls to Him, and Paul writes that this is because tribulation works patience, patience works experience, experience works hope, and our hope in Christ makes us not ashamed. It is through our trials that we are given the opportunity to recognize our true need of God for everything including our own very existence. We are given the opportunity to cry out "save me" just as Peter did when he got out of the boat (don't be surprised if this becomes a recurring theme, I often have a tendency to think of things in terms of Peter getting out of the boat) and recognize the hand of God himself working in our lives to pull us closer to Him.

In the same sentence that Christ said that we would have tribulation in this world, He said to be of good cheer because He has overcome the world. Actually He didn't say to be of good cheer, the text literally says to have courage (look it up in the greek) because He has overcome the world. Our victory has already been acheived. It is by dieing to ourselves through our suffering in this world that we grow in living for God and bearing the fruit of the Spirit, of which we will reap if sown.

There is one catch to our victory, it's not always what we want, but what God wants for us. The immediate context of the verse from which the title of this post (and this blog) comes from is the thorn in the flesh which Paul asked the Lord three times to remove, to which our Lord simply answered, "My grace is sufficient for thee".

May God grant me to learn to glory in my infirmities that His power might be found in me. (I have a long way to go.)