Admit it, You're Weak!

Me too! In fact, learning to admit you're weak is the key to strength!

Weakness is something that I have a particular fear of experiencing.

I tell a story about discovering this particular fear in myself. I was always uncomfortable around people who had visible physical handicaps. This bothered me, and I recall asking God for help with this, as I was a minister and was supposed to be a servant, especially to those in need.

I remember getting the distinct insight that my fear flowed from my fear of “appearing” weak or enfeebled! It was my weakness that I feared, and seeing others bear this burden made me face my own fears of weakness.

When you fear being “weak,” you find yourself hiding from real weaknesses that never get confronted and subsequently never get stronger!

Your fear of confronting your weakness keeps you weak and even makes you weaker!

But what if you were strongest only WHEN you acknowledged your weakness?

What if God made Himself “weak” so that your weakness could be healed? What if the path to true spiritual maturity and true personhood has everything to do with you confronting your weaknesses?

Get ready to face the paradox: when you are weak, you are strong.

Look at our lesson today in Romans 13:11-14; 14:1-4:

Brethren, salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for God is able to make him stand.

St. Paul uses his great Roman epistle to instruct us about the power of being in a community and how we are all called to consider “the other” in what we do and say.

Now, be aware that this is a two-edged sword, and it can be easily misapplied and even abused if we ignore both love and the truth-telling aspect. There’s a ditch on either side of this narrow road, so BE ATTENTIVE!

First, St. Paul makes a provocative statement: our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.