II Cor 12: Strongest When We are Weakest

In II Corinthians 12, Paul makes the startling claim that we are strongest when we are weakest. What does he mean? Paul was a great man of God with a deep understanding of Christianity. In v.7, he writes that God allowed Satan to give him a physical ailment, described as a thorn in the flesh, to buffet him or cause pain.

God allowed this to happen to drive Paul to pray to God that the thorn be removed (v.8). God answered Paul’s prayer, but not in the way Paul expected. Instead of taking the thorn away, God left the thorn there and told Paul that the grace or favor of God that he already had would give Paul the strength he needed to endure the thorn (v.9).

There are two ways God will help us with a burden we bear: He will either decrease the weight by removing burden or He will increase the strength of the shoulder that bears the burden. In Paul’s case, God increased Paul’s strength by reminding him that, as a believer in Christ, Paul already had the grace necessary to bear the burden. How do we know he already had it? Note the word “is” – that’s the present tense of the verb “to be”. Believers already have the grace of God necessary to shoulder a great burden!

Further, God told Paul that His strength is made perfect in Paul’s weakness. God’s strength is complete, is greatest, when we are weakest because it is only when we recognize how weak we are that we trust in God’s strength the most. We are strongest, when we are weakest!

Notice the progression in v.8-10: (1) Paul prays to God that the burden would be removed. (2) God answers the prayer, not by removing the burden, but by reminding Paul of the grace and strength he already has access to. (3) Paul “gladly” glories in infirmities or times of weakness and burdens and even finds “pleasure” in them because he discovers that those times are when he is strongest!

Read II Corinthians 11:23-28 and see all that Paul endured while preaching the gospel and ministering to churches. Why did he not quit during those trying times? He looked to the grace of God for his strength and not himself. Christ is the lasting and sustaining strength every person needs to survive hard times in life. Illicit and licit drugs, psychological therapy, a new career or better education can never provide the strength that Christ offers the believer that rests in His power. His grace is always sufficient. We can take all the disappointments, worries, fear and misery we face and weigh them against two words - “My Grace” - and they all disappear.

Three times in Matthew 26:36-44 does God the Son pray to God the Father that the cup of the world’s sin be removed from Him. But God the Son desired to do the will of God the Father and he received that cup. Paul follows the example of God the Son: Three times, he prayed that the thorn be removed from him, but he desired to do the Father’s will and rested in the strength of the Lord. Do you follow Christ’s example?

In Psalm 16:1, David wrote, “Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.” David did not ask for the problem to be removed, rather, he asks that God would preserve him, or strengthen him during the trial so he could get through it. No wonder David can write that he walks through the valley of the shadow of death in Psalm 23. Like Paul, David did not trust in his own strength. They both rested in the power of Christ.

Are you weak yet? We cannot be strong until we recognize our weakness and find our strength in the grace of God.