Content With Weakness.....

Since I know it is all for Christ's good, I am quite content with my weakness, with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:10

No-one likes to admit when they are weak and most people I know don't like hardship and persecutions.  Most of us are found daily complaining about our weaknesses.  When we interview for jobs our prospective employer asks us to list our strengths and weaknesses.  We look in the mirror and find every ugly thing about us.  We complain about our troubles daily.  Insults make us defensive, and hardships depress us, so what on earth is Paul saying in this scripture?  How can he say he is proud to boast about his weaknesses and that he is content with them?  How on earth can he say his weakness makes him strong?

Paul is not living in his own strength.  He can be content because he doesn't have to worry about fixing it all on his own.  Just like Paul, we too can be content in our weakness.  Content - a state of peaceful happiness.  Paul was in this state because he knew that, although he nor his life was perfect, God's power was sufficient to get him through anything.  He was at peace with his faults and circumstances because God could work through those things to make better and glorify His name.  Paul understood that everything he endured on earth was for God's glory and that gave him peace.  

If I were to fight every hardship in my life with complaining and if I were to defend myself or try and change my circumstances in my own power then God could never be glorified and nothing good would come from my own power.  It would eventually run out and I would be left with more heartache and hardship.  If I relied on my own strength then I could never be content with the bad in my life because I would always be working to fix it.  What peace it must have felt for Paul to not worry about his problems but just trust in God's master plan.  To be at peace with his enemies, his stuttering voice, or his unfair circumstance.  He was content with his weakness because that made Him strong.  He had to rely on God and that gave him power to stand up to anything.  We can all be Paul's and stay content in our situations, hold back with our defensiveness and accept our troubles.  These very things give us reason every day to call on our God for help and strength and wisdom.  If we were all perfect and powerful then we would never need God, the source of REAL POWER.  The power to love the unloveable, forgive the unforgivable and teach the unteachable.  Thank you God for our weakness and our troubles without them we would be self sufficient leaving us weak and troubled!  Amen!!