When Is It Okay to Be Weak?

by Charleen Burghardt

“Are you ready?” I asked my friend Rhonda, as she waited for her cue to go to the podium in a room full anticipating listeners. Her response surprised me. “I am never ready but God is.”

The group in the room responded to her clear, powerful and confident message with smiles and nods. Rhonda’s words inspired and touched those in the group and myself.  

Since then I pondered Rhonda’s words, “I am never ready but God is.” Although she prepared, she knew that the influence did not depend on her eloquence but on the Holy Spirit. She relied on God and not on her ability.

I wondered if we could approach other opportunities the way Rhonda approached speaking. Could we rely on God more and less on ourselves?

I wonder

In a recent post by Phylicia Masonheimer, I read “Let God help. Don’t do it alone.” How often do we think it is up to us, focusing on our competences or our inadequacies? Either way, the focus is on us. Rhonda’s focus was not on her, but on God’s enabling work through her.

Let God help. Don’t do it alone

We can have a “try harder” mentality, which is actually our self-engineering, in accomplishing a task or speaking. Where is our dependence on the Holy Spirit in a “try harder” mentality?

The fruit of the Spirit is not the “fruit of trying”, or the “fruit of striving,” or the “fruit of working harder.” The fruit of the Spirit is a product of God’s supernatural work with us (Galatians 5:22, 23). The Holy Spirit enables, fills, guides, and empowers us.

I know we want to do a good job, but are we relying on ourselves?

God uses imperfect broken people to accomplish his will and to share the story of Christ. I don’t have to be good enough for God to use me. God is the one who works through us bringing the fruit.

In her book, Divine Detour, the author, Lori Ann Wood, she tells of developing serious and life threatened heart failure. Her illness limited her physical ability to do tasks and be involved in her community. The book gives vignettes of how God sustained her, taught her and enabled her. God showed up in her illness. God showed up in her inability. She says, “… I realized that my weakness, my inadequacy, is the ultimate qualification for serving God. She says, “Be weak and wait. Be powerless and see… He is waiting for me to be weak.”

Being weak qualifies us for serving and we can delight in God’s strength.

God spoke to Paul when he asked God to remove a weakness or some kind of handicap.

He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.” So I’ll gladly spend my time bragging about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power can rest on me. Therefore, all right with weaknesses, insults, disasters, harassments, and stressful situations for the sake of Christ, because when I’m weak, then I’m strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

My grace is enough

Our thinking is backwards. It is not about us being strong; it is about God being strong in us.

We can quit trying before we start and let enabling start.

We acknowledge the power and the strength comes from above. This mindset is counterintuitive and definitely not the American way of being strong and determined without showing flaws.

Rhonda took herself out of the equation. We can do the same “because when I’m weak, then I’m strong.”

There are times that it is okay to be weak.

I remind myself of the verse, “God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes.” (Philippians 2:13) God empowers us to want to obey and then gives us the ability to do our called divine mission.

Here are some steps to letting God use you.

1. Admit our weakness
2. Acknowledge the power and strength come from God
3. Ask for God to show up in your weakness
4. Access the power of the Holy Spirit in you by yielding

Prayer:

Almighty God, you know our human weaknesses and our brokenness. Overcome our limitations, disabilities, faults by your grace. We yield to you to empower us.

Amen

Friend, thank you for reading this post and hope it spoke to you. I would love to hear a comment from you.

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