2Cor. 12:9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
When I first truly surrendered my life to Christ I was 23 years old suffering from mental illness. Every day was a horrific battle with clinical depression and clinical anxiety. Besides my struggle with mental illness, there was the daily bondage to sin’s power that were like strongholds in my life. The word “weakness” in the verse above is just a general word that covers all kinds of weaknesses and frailties. Spiritual, mental, and emotional imperfections would’ve been a good description of where my life was. After a couple of years of struggling to be a good Christian I was at the point of despair. I loved God as much as I knew how. I went to church every time the doors were open; I read the Bible as much as I could; memorized a goodly portion, especially of the New Testament. I went to bible study, and discipleship groups constantly. I came to the place where I was even praying several hours a day, mostly begging. The discouraging thing was that even after two years of trying the best I could, I was still just as frail and defeated as I was when I started. My brokenness had a death grip on me. I had been begging God for two years to change me; to take away my crippling fears and remove my mental illness. Through the help of some godly people I came to see in scripture the wonders the Christian life offered, though I could never seem to enter in to the experience of it. I believed John 10:10 when it said, “He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.” I believed the He came to live His life through me, and that the life He lives is a victorious one. I could see in scripture that believers were called to live as overcomers in this fallen world, on their way to Heaven. The problem was, I was so frail, weak, and broken, I was disqualified from Jesus being able to live His victorious life through me. I believed if God would just take away my weaknesses, then I could live in the supernatural power of God daily. I could see the Victorious Christian life; I just didn’t know how to get there since I was so broken and sick in my heart and mind. Then the glorious day came when I saw the truth that changed my life forever, and set my feet in the “Large Room” that Jesus purchased for me to live in.
This is what I saw. “Power is perfected in weakness.” That particular word “perfected,” means completed or fulfilled. In other words, power needs something; a missing ingredient, if you will, for it to be fully realized. That missing ingredient, on our part, that attracts the power of God, so that it can be completed, is our frailty and weaknesses. It was a startling revelation for me to realize those many years ago, that my severe brokenness was the very thing that qualified me to live the victorious life as an overcomer in this fallen world.
We will talk more about this in tomorrow’s devotional, but let me leave you with this verse from 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in earthen (frail, fragile, easily broken) vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;”