The Lord spoke powerful words to the apostle Paul as he suffered with his painful thorn in the flesh: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
But what do these words mean in practice? In particular, how is God’s power made perfect in weakness? Before I lean into this question, notice that in the immediate context (1 Corinthians 12:8-10) this truth gets repeated three times and in three slightly different ways (italics mine).
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ 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.”
Three times this powerful spiritual truth gets formulated:
1. “my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 8—the Lord’s message to Paul)
2. “so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (v. 9—Paul’s response)
3. “when I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10—Paul’s summary)
Now that we’ve noticed how emphatic Paul is about the importance of weakness for spiritual strength, we’re ready to address the how question. How is God’s power made perfect in weakness? How do Christian men or women (or teens or children, for that matter) have Christ’s power resting on them in such a way that they are in fact strong when they are weak?
I’m surprised by how rarely this practical question gets asked. Christians commonly repeat the truth that strength is made perfect in weakness, but less often think about the process. The short answer to the how question is that spiritual power is not automatically released when someone is weak. Just because I am weak does not mean that I am strong. The way God’s power gets released in my life is when I acknowledge my weakness. Lots of people are weak who know nothing of the power of God. It is only when someone acknowledges and leans into his or her weakness that God’s enabling power is experienced.
Look again at the context. After three separate periods of prayer in which Paul asks God for his thorn in the flesh to leave, the Lord (somehow) communicates a message to Paul that divine grace is adequate for whatever suffering he might experience—including his terrible thorn. (What was the thorn? Look at HERE [book] and HERE [short summary].) Paul’s response to this message from God is the key. After so much prayer that it might be removed, Paul received the answer that God was not going to remove it, but instead that God’s grace was sufficient in the midst of his suffering.
Paul’s response is telling—I love Paul’s passion!—a response that demonstrates the proper posture toward weakness. Paul replies, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” He not only tolerates weakness…he not only accepts weakness…he is downright insistent that he should boast about being weak! And if this weren’t clear enough, he repeats it in verse 10: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses…”
How, then, is spiritual power released in a person’s life? (1) By accepting the truth that God allows weakness for good in our lives, and (2) by being willing to share about one’s weaknesses with others—instead of pretending that we are strong.
That’s the initial answer of how God’s power is perfected in our weakness. We ready ourselves to receive whatever strengthening God wants to impart by acknowledging our need—first to God and then to others.
But there is another aspect to the how question. That is the how it gets worked out in our lives. What does it look like in practice for God’s power to be released into the life of a person who acknowledges weakness and need? What changes in someone’s life?
Here are four practical implications of receiving strength in weakness. These are all drawn from discussions of weakness in 2 Corinthians: the first two from our immediate passage and the third and fourth from other places in 2 Corinthians where Paul also reflects on weakness.
When We Acknowledge Our Weakness
What happens when we acknowledge that we are weak?
First, when we acknowledge our weakness, God empowers us to be humble.
Humility doesn’t sound like something you need power for, does it? But Paul twice says in the preceding verse that he had been given the thorn in the flesh “to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor 12:7; cf. 1 Cor 1:29). Anyone who has wrestled with temptations to pride—oh, how much I’ve wrestled with this!—knows that without God’s empowerment, you cannot put down pride. The first result of power-released-through-weakness is an increase in humility.
Second, when we acknowledge our weakness, God empowers us to find contentment during periods of suffering.
Paul exclaims: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (2 Cor 12:10). The spiritual empowerment Paul received led to contentment. Once again, as with humility, contentment doesn’t sound like something you need God to empower you for; but anyone who has struggled with anxiety will tell you that they absolutely need the power of God’s Spirit to produce in them the fruit of contentment (“peace” Gal 5:22; cf. John 14:27).
Third, when we acknowledge our weakness, God empowers us to communicate the gospel in a way that prods listeners to look to the crucified Christ and not to ourselves.
“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor 1:17—notice the powerful broader context of 1 Cor 1:17-2:5). Moreover, people see the life of Jesus displayed in us: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7). “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor 4:11).
Fourth, when we acknowledge our weakness, we place ourselves in the right attitude for those times when we need to speak a word of rebuke to an erring Christian brother or sister. Paul was so concerned about the sins of some in Corinth that he felt responsible to challenged them to consider whether they were even Christians (“test yourself to see whether you are in the faith,” 2 Cor 13:5). But before he offered such probing reproof, he leaned into his weakness. He wrote about his fear that he might be humiliated in front of the Corinthians on an upcoming visit (12:21). He acknowledged that as Christ was crucified in weakness, “we also are weak in him” (13:4). When we must speak a word of rebuke, we will only do it effectively via Christ’s power if we are reminded of our own weakness (cf. Gal 6:1-5).
What, then, is God’s call on our lives today from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10? We start by acknowledging our weakness and our utter need for God’s empowering. Then, constantly staying aware of our own weakness, we lean into God’s enabling power to be humble in thought and deed, content during suffering, manifesting the truth of the gospel in our weak bodies, and offering words of reproof and guidance that come not from ourselves but from our dependence on God’s enabling power. This is how God’s power can be displayed, lived out, and even perfected through weak people who acknowledge that they’re weak.
For more on how God’s power is perfected in weakness, see ch. 10 (also chs. 1, 3 & 9) in my new book (with Keith Krell), God’s Purposes in Our Pain: 10 Ways God Uses Suffering for Our Good (Crossway).
