devotional - day 2

2 Corinthians 12:9 (NKJV)  My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness 

My original exposure to this verse was the Kings James version. Then the NIV version (from the 1990s) 

For the longest time I struggled with what this verse actually meant. I mean, how? How was my weakness supposed to be a strength? That’s ridiculous. 

I came to realize that I was interpreting that verse through the lens of ME turning my weakness into MY strength (even though it clearly refers to God’s strength). So, of course it didn’t make sense or seem possible. 

Then God turned it all sorts of around. That where I was weak, was where (when I asked for help) God could make me strong. 

Well, stronger than weak. 

I don’t know that strong always means super strength. More like taking my weak arms from being able to do eight “girlie” push ups (I believe the PC term nowadays is “knee-push up”) to one (and only one) full pushup. Maybe someday I’ll get to five full pushups. Regardless…(to end this true to life analogy of my arm strength), changing the perspective to “strong enough” in the moment from “super strong” and relying on God to give me the strength (and not myself) within the weakness was an eye opener on applying this verse to real life and believing it could be done.

For instance, my ability to doubt God for a never-before-experienced promise is really quite phenomenal. He could be being super sweet and giving me signs and confirmations GALORE and I’ll still go down a doubt spiral and then feel the need to repent for not trusting and “golly darn, Lord, please help my unbelief”.  God could not be doing more for me to just trust him while he’s working and getting everything ready, AND YET I doubt. In those moments…my weakness of ruminating on the doubt needs help. Needs strength I don’t believe I have and if I just pray instead of getting caught up into the doubt spiral, I’d have the strength I need to resist the doubt spiral. 

So, God slowly but surely is in the process of turning my weakness of ruminating on doubt of his goodness into a strength of building my trust with him. 

Therefore, if you’ve ever wondered “how the heck is that verse supposed to work?”, maybe the above examples will help.

In the meantime, have an excellent day!