9 And he
said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect
in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that
the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore
I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. (1 Cor.
12:9-10)
Pau doesn’t naturally
like infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses, but he
has learned how to immediately take refuge in Christ’s grace by calling on God
for help.
He could only say he
takes pleasure in those unpleasant situations if he had learned he could always
depend on God. He had gotten to
the point when he considered those times he’d been helped as something to
enjoy, rather than dreading the hard times as something too much for his
natural powers and resources.
Instead, he saw those times as opportunities.
Before we learn to
depend on God, we go through life dreading what might happen because we fear
running into a situation that would be too much for us, whether temptation or
need or persecution or stress or demands from others dependent upon us.
Paul’s statement
here, counterintuitive and disturbing as it is, gives us a vision of the kind
of trust in God’s enabling power that we can attain in this life, if only we can learn to turn to
God. It is possible we may come to
see those times of grace as better than the times we were enough on our own.
0 comments:
Post a Comment