There is a strength in weakness that only God can bring. He has a way of investing himself into our lowest place to release an empowerment that changes a deficit into an advantage. God’s Spirit is a spirit of strength. When we are filled with his Spirit, we can feel it, we can feel the strength of it resonating inside us, lifting us up, empowering us to do his will! We must learn how to draw this strength from the Lord.
God is so extremely, supremely confident in his own ability that he can easily afford to choose the weakest elements possible from humanity to represent him. He is joyously accomplished in developing the kinds of people who have been written off by everyone else (1 Corinthians 1: 26-29). His talent in doing everything, with nothing is a masterpiece. He turns our potential into something actual. He’s never phased or diminished by the inabilities of people but takes greater delight in empowering them to be what they could not possibly be or become by their own efforts.
His delight in this process is so demonstrable that it transfers to our own hearts also and we also get excited. When faced with a particular limitation, Paul wanted God to remove it (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10). This is always our primary, natural, human response to anything bigger than we can handle. Take it away from me, we pray. Of course, that happens on occasion, because the Lord is our deliverer. Sometimes he sets us free from circumstances and other times he emancipates us from within the situation. The former is a emancipation from the incident itself. The latter is a desire within him to demonstrate who he is for us in the event we must face. We seldom mature in God’s presence by just being set free from everything. We really need to learn how to work out our salvation and awe, wonder and delight because he loves to work in us for his own good pleasure-Ephesians 2: 12-13.
Maturity in spiritual terms it’s about becoming Christ like. There is no possibility in this happening if we are unwilling to face Adversity and pass our tests. Maturity is concerned with developing the same attitude and approach to life that characterized Jesus in his walk with the father. David was a man after God’s heart because he pursued intimacy and worship as a way of life. Caleb was a man of a different spirit because he celebrated and honored God’s majesty and pursued it in every conflict.
All the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11: 32-34 did exploits in the Kingdom because they discovered who God was for them in the circumstances they faced. They all learned how to draw strength in their moments of weakness. Heroes are people who have been sharply tested. They have trusted God when others around them ran away and became mighty men and women of the Lord (2 Samuel 23; 8-12). Overcoming is an attitude Caleb had, and he had it in abundance (Numbers 13: 30). When most of his fellow spies were dominated by what they had seen in the natural. Joshua and Caleb faced the angry mob and their frightened teammates. They spoke out of their place of confidence in the majesty of God (Numbers 14: 8-9), but cowards won out that day. That was the moment where Israel lost its inheritance. We do not want to lose ours, we must become the people of another spirit, the spirit of a warrior.
The stakes we are playing for are high. The tests we experience are designed to produce men and women who hold high office in the spiritual affairs of a nation.
We must learn how to turn our weakness into a joyful vulnerability to the sovereignty and supremacy of God. We make our weakness an offering to His Majesty. It is a joyous transaction, a delightful interaction. We can bow to his Grace because its power alone can meet every need we can imagine. Power is kindled by the elevated surrender of our fragility. When we are weak, then we can know His strength. Maturity is the capacity to be moved from an excessive awareness of weakness to an intensified appreciation of the majesty of God.
Regarding our weaknesses, we must learn to be glad. To have a bright shining pleasure in talking with excessive pride about the superiority of Jesus, we are excited about His majesty. Contentment is the peaceful happiness that comes when we are in awe of how God feels about us.
Gladness, boasting and contentment in Jesus all play a vital part in the surrender of weakness to the supremacy of Jesus. Turning weakness into a joyful vulnerability to the majesty of Jesus will take us into a dimension of Kingdom life that will empower us to experience heaven on earth in our circumstances.