I’ve been in a small group studying 2 Corinthians. We’re wrapping up and just covered the familiar section in chapters 11 and 12 where Paul boasts in his weakness:
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. There times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. … Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Now the reason I bring this up is because I have noticed that my attitude is often very different from Paul’s.
When I have a sleepless night, I tend to think that get’s in the way advancing God’s kingdom. I sit around and wait for the days without interruptions, without the shipwrecks that upset my journey, so that I can get everything done for God more efficiently. I think that if I just didn’t have the weight on my heart of my children who are going astray, then I could have the strength to do something productive for the kingdom.
But Paul says that none of this is true. These hardships and calamities and insults and persecutions do leave us weak, but that weakness does not stop the advancement of the Kingdom of God. When we are weak, when nothing goes smoothly, when the world seems against us, we become a vessel to display the great strength of our God as he works powerfully within us.
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