My Weakness - His Strength

Isn't failure a bummer? Don't you just despise your weakness?

I do.

But it seems to be a part of the landscape, at best on the distant horizon. I am reminded of Paul's thorn in the flesh.

Not that we have an excuse for sin. There is none available.

Yet sometimes repentance seems futile. Or insincere. Do you ever recoil from asking Him one more time, feeling like it is useless - "I will only fail again"?

Repent anyways. Fifty times a day. One hundred. The number doesn't matter; the humility does, the willngness to seek does.

Sin patterns can be overcome, habits can be broken, and longstanding failures changed. He lives within.

I remember telling my daughter once as she sat in tears of frustration with her sin - "Repent to Him and whoever is involved. It is the beginning of His grace flowing in this area. It is where it all starts. Do it as much as you need until this thing is dealt with." She soon found help and change.

Still there are certain weaknesses that seem to be part of the package - inherent to human nature, like that thorn; they seem to be a part of our makeup. Weakness is not sin - it is just weakness. It leaves us short of perfection and causes us to need Him. We find ourselves incomplete apart from Him. Acknowledgement of our weakness separates the men from the boys, the truthteller from the hypocrite, the God seeker from the fool.

At times I flail in frustration and hopelessness against my weakness. In better moments I strategize plans for overcoming them. But in the best moments I go to Him and ask Him to work through me in spite of them, and even to somehow use them for His glory. After all, His strength is seen through them.

Better His strength than mine.