“The lame will take the plunder.” This is the last line of Isaiah 33:23, and Micah 4:7 adds, “I will make the lame a remnant and the outcasts a strong nation, and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from now own and forever.”
At a place called Peniel (in Hebrew, it means “The face of God”), God encountered Jacob and broke him so that God could fully use him and he could fulfill his destiny in the Lord. God dislocated his hip and changed his name to Israel. At the conclusion of the story in Genesis 32, we are told in verse 31, “Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel and he was limping on his thigh.” According to Hebrews 11:21, as Jacob was dying, he blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped God, “leaning on the top of his staff.”
I believe that after his face-to-face encounter with God at Peniel, Jacob always walked with a limp as a constant reminder that it is the “lame who take the plunder.” God had long looked for a man weak enough that he could use, and He found one in Jacob after Peniel. In our weaknesses, God’s strength is made perfect, and in our strength, God is unnecessary. God is looking for a person or people who will come into agreement with Christ that “apart from Him we can do nothing.” It is only those who, in absolute total dependence, look to Jesus to be the source of their strength and adequacy step-by-step who enjoy all the vast riches of who they are in Christ, and it is only the weak who plunder the enemy’s camp. Why is that? It is because only the lame walk in faith providing a platform through their weaknesses for Christ to demonstrate His immeasurable capacity. Our extremities are always His opportunities. “When you are weak, then you are strong” in His strength.
If you feel that you are too weak or inadequate to offer Jesus anything of value to work with, then you need to repent of that kind of self-centered thinking because you are just exactly what Jesus is looking for. You need to stop being ashamed of your “lameness,” and like Paul decree, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
“Behold I am going to deal at that time with all your oppressors, I will save the lame and gather the outcast, that will turn their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.” Zephaniah 3:19