Season 3, Episode 1 - Weakness

Weakness is a topic that we generally don’t talk about NOR do we commonly hear it preached.

Over the last year I have been thinking a lot about weakness, surely inspired by different events and circumstances I have found myself in. In particular 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 where Paul discusses the thorn in his flesh. I’ve read that passage so many times, and found myself so curious about what Paul is really saying. Because this passage doesn’t actually make sense. 

2 Corinthians 12:7 (second part of the verse):

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

WHAT IS WEAKNESS?

The word that Paul uses that is translated as weakness in the English Bible is Astheneia, a word that he uses 44 times in the Pauline letters. We might remember this passage the most, but it is a fairly prominent word in his writings. From the 44 occasions in which he uses astheneia, we get some idea of how he understood and intended to use the word. The word itself has been used in other Greek texts, particularly those written around that same time. And if we consider how Paul used the word and those Greek texts, the meaning of astheneia means ‘Powerlessness’. 

The context of the word is broad, so it could cover a multitude of situations…however, most scholars believe that when Paul spoke of a thorn in his flesh, he was referring to some kind of physical ailment. But the vagueness of this thorn in this passage certainly works in our favour…because we are able to insert our own thorns, whatever they may be. This thorn was his astheneia. It’s what made him weak. Paul didn’t initially perceive this thorn to be a good thing. It was unwanted, and certainly when Plato used the Astheneia in his own writings it had a negative implication. It was something to be avoided.

WHAT IS POWERLESSNESS?

So what exactly does powerless mean? In Pauls’ life, the thorn is the precise matter for which he experiences powerlessness. It made him weak. It tormented him. He pleads with God that it would be removed. It’s obvious that it was some kind of barrier to his life and ministry, that was outside of his realm of ability to change, despite his best efforts. Now its really important here to state that he wasn’t talking about a power imbalance, and the fact that his powerlessness in this situation originated in an authority figure above him wielding power and abuse. So please do not look at this as some kind of confirmation of abusive situations. We aren’t talking about that kind of powerlessness.

However, trauma does tend to make us extremely uncomfortable with weakness, and powerlessness is a scary thing to contemplate. A couple of years back I was a part of a spiritual formation group through college. And I remember telling my story, trauma and all, and just being so unemotional and matter of fact about it. We moved on to the other people in the group. But the next day we had one last person left to share. They hadn’t been through the kind of trauma I had, but they were so vulnerable about their recent circumstances. You could feel their pain, and emotion and it was very moving. It suddenly dawned on me, that despite being a transparent person, I was not very vulnerable. I shared my story as though I was a victor, as a testimony. I wasn’t vulnerable about the parts of me that were still oppressed by my trauma. Ironically, my need to be perceived as triumphant and having it together was probably evidence of my trauma. For the rest of that year, and certainly through the ongoing spiritual formation group, I started to delve into my own struggles with vulnerability. I realised that I had been putting up a front to everyone, especially myself. I had purposefully projected strength because the truth is that most of the time I didn’t feel very strong at all. And I definitely was afraid to be vulnerable. I had actually assumed that all vulnerability was bad, because the last time I felt THAT weak I lost my innocence. I would say that that was the door that really started my journey toward what this is today - all the books, the podcasts. It’s what makes me capable of facing the pink elephants with courage. Because the hard stuff leads to a greater breakthrough than all the toxic positivity in this world! I have that person to thank for being so open and vulnerable about their challenges. 

So powerlessness are those things in your life that you wish you could change, but despite every attempt you can’t seem to fix it. It could be a character or personality trait, it could be a physical ailment or even just your physical appearance or other physical attributes. It could be trauma and the consequential shame, fear and depression that it has caused…it could be your IQ and your intelligence. Whatever it may be, despite your best efforts to change it, it still persists…and the likelihood is that you’ve had to accept it unwillingly and compensate for it. Maybe even hide it.  

Maybe you can’t relate to this so far. But there’s also a good chance you’ve suffocated that thing so deeply that you just aren’t consciously aware of it. I’ll give you an exacmple. By nature I am a disorganised scatterbrain. I can be extremely focused, and I am definitely a good planner especially when it comes to projects, which is why I used run projects...but I learnt all of that. By nature, however, I am a disorganised scatterbrain especially if I have to juggle lots of responsibility. When I used to go over to my Aunties house as a kid, 9 times out of 10, I would forget to take home with me whatever new toy I had gotten. My Aunty ended up calling me ‘forgetful Jones’ from Sesame Street. Google it if you don’t know who that is. The name stuck for years. I guess I must have felt ashamed about it at times. But when I got older, I started to hear people occasionally say I was unreliable and I didn’t like the sound of that - because I really do care about people. Meanwhile, the list of things I wanted to do with my life grew - I was recording music in studios at the time and coordinating a fair amount of people. And I wanted to do more of that. As the stakes got higher in terms of what I was involved in and what I wanted to achieve, I knew I had to do something about my general tendency toward disorganisation and scatterbrain-ness. So when I got to University, I dusted off an old book that my Dad had on the shelf called “The 10 Natural Laws of Time and Life Management” by Hyrum Smith and I absolutely studied that book. I highlighted it, I had post it notes. Summaries of each chapter. 

Within just a few months, I had completely turned around my whole life as well as lifting my entire grade at University. I wasn’t stressed. I was reliable. And eventually more people trusted me, especially when it came to leadership when I eventually started getting involved in that. Since then, time management and life management has become a passion of mine. I’ve read copious numbers of books about it, I’ve taught people how to be more organised. It has become so ingrained in my way of life that nobody would ever consider me ‘disorganised’. Now those same friends that thought I was unreliable refer to me as organised. Yeah its nice to know that people can completely forget your past eventually. 

But again the truth is, I know deep down that I’m still that disorganised mess…under all the good systems that compensate for my nature, I’m just another scatterbrain. THE POINT OF THIS STORY IS: Just because you have successfully managed your weaknesses, doesn’t mean they aren’t still there. So don’t be tempted right now to take the position of pride and pretend that there aren’t things about yourself that you absolutely wish you could fundamentally change. I still wish I could change that trait. Because I know it only takes a day without looking at my todolist to have the truth unravel. I still have to maintain a system to be this way. 

Now disorganisation is probably not the worst of traits to dislike in oneself. There are certainly far worse, far more detrimental to our self-esteem and mental health. They chase us all day subconsciously. What are yours? Do you know? 

EXTERNAL POWERLESSNESS

So far, I’ve only talked about the internal things that we feel powerless against. There are external things too. COVID is an example of an external factor that many of us felt powerless against. It was and is, a circumstance that befell our society that demanded changes in living circumstances and many other more severe factors that we didn’t have to contend with prior to COVID. 

And I don’t need to tell you what actions our society took to try and handle this overwhelming feeling of powerlessness, but I will - yes there was vaccines. But there was also anger, resentment, violence, suicide, control. These reactions may not have been nice, but its why I try not to judge any person or entity, because most of society were just reacting to a very unfamiliar feeling - powerlessness. 

Powerlessness is not a situation that we desire, nor are we comfortable with. Whether external or internal. Who wants to be powerless? Who would want to be weak? Powerlessness brings out the worst in us. So how remarkable is it than, that Paul not only recognised his powerlessness or his weakness, but he also rejoiced in it? We can only assume that he had some epic revelation, that Christ revealed some mind blowing truth, that reversed his entire mindset about what it means to be weak and powerless. What would take a man from pleading with God to remove this thorn, to boasting in it? Lets keep going deeper. 

THE CONTEXT OF CORINTHIANS

See the context of 2 Corinthians is really critical to understanding why Paul would even need to discuss this topic. He wasn’t just writing a private journal entry to work through his issues. He had a purpose, this letter would be read out to the church of Corinth.

From the book of Corinthians we can deduce that the church had some false apostles, or as Paul sarcastically calls them - “the Superapostles”. These superapostles had almost successfully discredited Paul in the eyes of the people, and so Paul is having to make an appeal to the church of Corinth. He is having to defend his apostolic authority and prove his calling as an apostle. Now the irony of this situation, is just incredible. This is a church that he began! And now he is having to answer them? Many leaders today would be too entitled to bother with such a preposterous situation. But Paul is more concerned to stop the Corinthian church of being led astray by the superapostles, espousing a incorrect gospel which he talks about in 2 Cor 11:4

The Superapostles complaints were: that Paul was lacklustre in his oratory skills and they referred to some observable weakness, concluding that he was not worthy to be listened to. The weakness may have been the physical ailment he refers to as his thorn, we can’t be sure. But certainly an apostle who is able to heal, but is crippled with his own life-threatening condition could have had some effect on his credibility.

On the other hand the super-apostles based their superiority over Paul, and authority as apostles, on at least two factors according to 2 Corinthians: dreams and visions…so I guess you could say their prophetic or spiritual gift, and their eloquence in speech. Eloquence in speech was highly regarded during that time, especially outside of the church. Great orators were respected, they were listened to, they were influential, had great credibility and were ultimately trusted. You could argue that this is still the case today, particularly in the church. We often elevate good speakers, over good character.

PAULS RESPONSE

Now Paul has a response to the matter of oratory skills, he claims that he deliberately came to them without eloquence…in the previous letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 2:1. But how does Paul respond to the statements about weakness? Instead of defending himself, and trying to demonstrate how strong he was…Paul accepts their slander. Yes he agrees with them. Why? Why would Paul do this? Surely this can’t be true, afterall wouldn’t this mean he was admitting that they were superior? This is the person we would consider one of the most influential people in the history of the church, besides Jesus…and here he seeming like he is accepting defeat?

He does this because he notices something. If he were to defend himself, and call himself strong, and present all the reasons that demonstrate his strength…he would still be proving himself according to their standard and their criterion. Why would the superapostles criterion matter when trying to establish whether someone has the very presence of the Holy Spirit in their life? God knows it’s not going to look as the world would think it should. And truth be told, sometimes the presence of the Holy Spirit doesn’t even look as Christians think it would. Paul doesn’t need to defend himself against their criterion. If he did, he would actually prove himself to be worldly, not apostolic at all. 

Here is the first pink elephant that demonstrates our need to go deeper. Our desire to prove ourselves, to project some kind of message about who we are has more alignment with the superapostles way of thinking that Gods. And I can tell you most of us are trying to do that. In the church, we are often trying to prove how good we are, how right we are, how spiritually attune we are, how self-controlled we are, how joyful and happy we are, how much we’ve got it together…we think this makes us look strong, holy, or morally good. But all of it stems from the exact same place - a desire to authenticate ourselves according to mans criterion. It’s not God that asks us to be that way. God doesn’t care what people say of us. Whether they think we are good or not, because it doesn’t matter what others think of us. He justs wants us to live with a life dedicated to Him, which most often than not happens in the secret place…not in the public spaces. Worse yet, according to this passage, these things we do believing it will validate us before man, are often exactly what stands in the way of Gods strength. Paul rejoiced in his weakness, because he knew it demonstrated more about God than it did about him. His weaknesses were not a barrier to God, conceitedness was. His weaknesses were a conduit for the Holy Spirit, not a inhibitor. But the desire to be self-made, and societally strong, now that is an inhibitor. That’s what this passage is saying. Now if we really believed this, if we really got this - why would we all be striving so hard? Why do we need to be seen as strong? Why is weakness something we run from? Why is charisma so important in ministry circles? Why are we so judgemental to others, why would we not see real hope in others weaknesses? Yes, because the truth is. We don’t generally believe this, and we generally have a worldly definition of strength. 

WHAT VALIDATES YOU?

See the Superapostles were posing a question, a question that we often get preoccupied with, but its the wrong question for this situation. The Superapostles were asking Paul: what validates you? What validates your authority? What makes you worthwhile? Why should we give you space, influence and time? 

Because of insecurity, we often get caught up answering this question too. We try to project something about ourselves, its definitely not for Gods sake. It’s for others. We say, well because I’m reliable, or because I know how to speak to people, well because I’m smart, I can fix anything…Well because I’m a good teacher, or speaker. Well I see visions and prophetic dreams. That was the game the superapostles got caught up in. But instead of Paul answering their question Paul answers another question that they didn’t ask…but should have. He answers this: where does my strength come from?

The real proof of Pauls apostolic authority, was not in performing various spiritual acts, although he did those too. It wasn’t in using literary devices and emotional manipulation through words and oratory gift. Pauls proof was that he could suffer for Christ, without reward. Not many had higher thoughts of Paul because of how he suffered, not when others had distracted the people into believing this vouched poorly for his apostolic rightness. He got virtually no personal reward for his suffering. Paul did this writing to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 1:8, implying that others looked upon Pauls suffering as shameful and embarrassing. But Paul suffered time and again, for the gospel. And though he certainly faced depression and times of mourning, he kept on getting up and being faithful knowing full well that there may not be a single personal benefit for his sacrifice, except for the one in heaven. 

Where does your strength come from? How much do you rely on God really? Can you endure every hardship without need for some personal benefit at the end of it? Just simply to know that Christ was in it. I can’t! At the end of 2022, I was praying Jesus make 2023 a good one. I still wanted comfort, despite knowing full well the testimony of Gods goodness in every hardship I had in 2022. Despite knowing that his power rested on me with a greater weight than any moment of self-sufficiency I have had. 

Let’s GO DEEPER again! Why? Why does Pauls weakness demonstrate his apostolic authority? Why does Pauls weaknesses demonstrate God’s strength? Well quite frankly, an apostle is chosen by God. Which means that the evidence of apostolic authority is Gods power working through him -  BUT that was precisely what the superapostles were trying to say. They were trying to suggest that they operated under a greater anointing, right? The reason Paul sees his weakness as a demonstration of his apostolic authority, is because his apostolic authority doesn’t even prove his own strength. It proves God’s strength. Is that not what all of our lives really are? Our lives demonstrate Christ. There are plenty of people out there who can prove the significance of human strength. They’ve endured horrible things, and they’ve been resilient. But what hope does that give to this world? The underlying message is that you’ve gotta be something special. I would rather the message that Paul has for us here, that if I lay it down, I don’t have to be strong anymore. I don’t have to worry about thorns. I can rely on Christs strength to get me through, and simultaneously demonstrate His goodness and strength. I don’t have to prove anything. 

See another Pink Elephant in the Christian world, is that we fail to define the level of power we are meant to have. We mistakenly look at this through the lens of either false humility or authority. Because there are risks with both, and they aren’t an accurate representation regarding how we relate to God and our world. 

I want you to imagine for a moment, a scale from zero to 10. We’ll call this the power scale. On the left hand side of the scale, is complete powerlessness, or zero power. On the right hand side of the scale, is all powerful. I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and I want you to mentally note where that lands on that scale. When it comes to your ability to buy a house, where on the scale would you place yourself? Do you have all the power to do that, or are you powerless or somewhere in between. When it comes to fixing your marriage if you had problems, where would you place yourself with regard to the level of power you have? If you wanted to progress into another job role in your workplace? If you wanted to earn more money? If you wanted to find a partner? If you wanted to go overseas? If you wanted to live till your 80 or 90? Retirement? Having a baby?

I could continue, but I think you get the point. But if you find yourself on the left end of the scale, for the most part, there is a good chance that you perceive yourself as a victim in most circumstances. Which means you see yourself as mostly powerless. Life is happening to you, you have very few choices. On the other hand if you marked most of your reponses in the 9 and 10’s you’re probably overestimating the level of control you have in your life. And I would say that your perception of your wealth also influences how often to mark on the higher scale versus the lower scale. See the fact is we are probably somewhere in the middle for most things. Take for instance, buying a house. If you wanted to buy a house, you probably could put some money away every week and as long as you didn’t touch it, you could probably eventually buy a house. Yes, the type of house would be impacted by what you can save, and where. But you have some power. But you have no power when it comes to whether a cyclone or hurricane comes along and destroys your possessions, or whether a pandemic comes along and the income of your company reduces drastically and you consequently lose your job. There is a level of power all of us have - our power is faithfulness. The rest is Gods. Even Ecclesiastes 9:11 reminds us of an important truth:

“I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all”

If you ever look at your life and think the successes you’ve had in life is on account of your own wisdom or strength…just remember, its probably opportunity that separated you from the rest. There are definitely people out there who are equally if not more strong, wise and brilliant out there. And plenty of them have worked harder! That’s not necessarily what made you special…

I’ve probably digressed somewhat. But the point is, we underestimate what we can do, and we overestimate what we can do. Coming to a healthy understanding of power, is to recognise what you can do and recognising what only God can do. Now God has a way of taking us through times that remind us of our humanity and his divinity, but if we truly want to be conduits for Christ’s power…we do need to work out the degree of weakness that is normal and the weakness that we invite because of our tendency toward being a victim. Because we are neither completely powerless nor completely powerful. 

SELF-REJECTION

Why are we all trying to change ourselves? I mean there’s some that aren’t, but for the average Christian listening to this, there are things within yourself that you wish were different. Those things you wish were different are what you would probably perceive as your weaknesses. I know what they are for me. I wish I was more consistent. I wish I was more assertive. I wish I didn’t overthink as much as I do. I wish I was more confident. I wish I was taller, much taller…I wish I could sleep better. 

And there’s a host of things I’ve done to try and change those aspects of myself. Because the cost of those qualities to the way I experience life can be big. But why do we try so hard to change ourselves? The things I’m talking about aren’t sins. They are just personality traits. So why do we try to change ourselves?

This bit is going to be hard initially for you to hear. The fact is, that we all have a level of self-disdain. Or self-hatred. We differ on the level we have, but there are aspects of ourselves that we point the finger of judgement at. And most likely shame is the result. We feel ashamed of these parts of ourselves. They embarrass us. Why would we ever change ourselves or adjust or suppress, if we loved ourselves? These are behaviours synonymous with self-loathing. Why would we over-apologise, or the other extreme of never apologising if we liked ourselves? These are two behaviours of someone who doesn’t like what they see in themselves, when they inevitably face the vulnerability of fault. I mean there are so many things in life that we do that are terribly harmful for us, and I’m not talking about having a little bit of chocolate in the evening. What about the stress that we put our bodies and our minds through to be seen as good? Or to keep up with the joneses? Or the money we spend to project an image? We literally do things everyday, that if it were someone doing it to us would be considered abuse. But we do it to ourselves. We burn ourselves out. We say yes, when we should have said no. We say no when we should have said yes. We hold unforgiveness, we get jealous - studies have shown that this has an effect on our physical health as much as our mental health. Yeah some of it is just sin that we are still dealing with, but lots of it is also deliberate. We have social media accounts even though it makes us depressed. We lie to ourselves, the bible says “A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin” Proverbs 26:28 - and yet we are often continually lying to ourselves. We tell ourselves our intentions were good, and that we’re alright, we got it all together. We’re not hypocrites or judgemental or whatever else we try and convince ourselves of when we are 100% sinning. We suffocate tears, even though this has an effect on our stomach health. We are actually so self-punishing in our choices - that’s the proof that we don’t really love ourselves. We might fool ourselves sometimes into believing that we do these things as our act of worship…oh blah blah blah…that’s just some self-righteous bull. 

We often have this harsh voice in our head that is constantly judging us, condemning us and telling us how we don’t measure up. And the only reason we listen to it, is because deep down we agree. Sometimes the only reason Christians are trying so hard to be good, is not because of Christ at all. It’s because they want to silence that shame they feel deep inside. It’s because they need to know they are good, because they don’t feel good. And whilst I understand how we all get there, the truth is its not genuine worship. And if you satisfy that niggle, it only leads to self-righteousness. Ok, stay with me. This might be really uncomfortable, but there is a point coming. See all the things we do to change these things we dislike in ourslves - all the striving, the hiding, the falsifying, they are all forms of self-reliance. It’s our attempt to control the things we don’t like seeing in us. But Paul is setting this incredible example to us - He accepts the weakness. For us, it would mean recognising “yes, I don’t feel good enough. I don’t think I’m smart enough. I don’t think I’m strong enough”. But Christ is enough. His power and grace is what we all really need and surely it leads you to healing. The destiny of my life, the will of God in my life and my families is not reliant on me meeting some worldly criterion of strength. Even if the Christian world is still so guilty of looking to that framework for defining success. Let them have their worldly forms of success. The real strength for us who want to live differently where our faith is truly nourishing, where we see the fruit of the gospel…is to demolish the worldly views of strength, and lay down all the weapons we have accumulated in that fight. 

I prove Christ when I lay my desire to control the narrative of who am I DOWN, and replace it with a new narrative that permeates my life. The narrative of WHO IS GOD.

References:

“Paul, The Apostle of Weakness” David Alan Black (Link)