Finding Strength in Weakness

From our gospel reading: The people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, they had their own fixed ideas as to how God works and as to how the Messiah would come - and the one they knew as the carpenter, Jesus - Mary’s son, simply did not fit their expectations or understanding of the Messiah when he comes.

Like the people of Nazareth who refused to listen to Jesus’ message and failed to recognize Him as the Messiah – we tend to see only what we want to see…. hear only what we want to hear.

The danger is - if you are so fixated on seeing only one thing, you are blind to see everything else…. Or, if you are so firmly believing in or strongly supporting an idea or theory or tradition – the danger is you can become inflexible and therefore unwilling to open your mind and change your beliefs.

Our beliefs affect our attitude and our attitude affects our behavior and our actions.

So - Pray to God for wisdom every day. Wisdom is considered the first and the greatest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is the ability to see and understand things, ourselves, others, understand our situations from God’s perspective and use that truth to glorify God.  It is important to have accurate perception because accuracy of perception leads to accuracy of response especially to the call of God.  It makes a whole world of difference. So, pray for wisdom every day.

God is a mystery.  What we believe about God affects how we pray, affects what we pray for and consequently affects how we treat others.

Problems and conflicts in relationships arise often times because – we react to what we think instead of what is reality… which might be different from what we think.

At times we tend to be judgmental of other people including our spouses, family members and friends and much more so towards other people.

The greatest enemy to faith can simply be “familiarity”: meaning – as Jesus experienced – it is the refusal to believe that God’s presence - and prophetic instruments of that presence - could come to us in so familiar a person as the person next door, so to speak.

An important lesson to learn here: Our growth in spiritual life is shown in our ability to recognize God – recognize His Presence - more and more in the ordinary everyday life and events and in ordinary people… at times through people we do not even like or least expected to bring the good news to us… or help us

We all have a tendency to be so bogged down with our own concept of what the minister of the Lord - should be like - that we miss the Word of God.

We say, “That priest or deacon or church leader who talks about scriptures and talks about being kind and charitable, does not appear to me to be very kind.” And so, we tend to NOT listen to any truth that they may have proclaimed. But you see - truth is truth, whether it is proclaimed by a saint or a sinner.

Think of your family members or friends. Maybe, there were times you refused to listen to them and therefore ignored what they were trying to telll you because of your pre-conceived idea of that person and so you might have missed out on the truth or good news…. On the other hand, maybe you can remember instances in your life when you were pleasantly surprised of the outcome because you listened to someone you least expected to come up with a great idea.  Quite a paradox.

The second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians speaks about another intriguing paradox – finding strength in weakness.

Paul discovered during a time of personal suffering that God can often accomplish more in the world through our times of weakness than in our times of strength.  It is a strange reversal of our normal thinking.

We do not know the nature of his physical suffering, but whatever it was, St. Paul prayed again and again that God would heal him. Humanly speaking, it would have made more sense for God to heal Paul, so that he could return with full health to the task of spreading the Gospel.  But in this case, for reason wrapped up in the mystery of God, God did not heal Paul of his illness.

God told Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  That was not the answer Paul sought.  But it is the answer by which Paul faced his illness, learned to live with it, and continued to serve Christ.

For Paul, suffering brings about humility. St. Paul points out that to ensure he does not develop a spiritual superiority, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh”, so to speak.

Our personal thorns in the flesh – maybe chronic illness or ongoing trials in life - can be certainly painful, and at times even impossible to bear.  However, God uses these thorns in our lives to display His power, to sustain us and use us. When we are young, all of us think we can be anything and do anything in life.  However, as we grow older, admittedly, we grow more and more in our awareness of our limitations.

The challenge is to have faith - and continue to trust God for the work He’s doing, even when we do not see it or understand. 

St Augustine, said: Believe that you may understand. St Anselm, agrees with St Augustine. Anselm wrote: I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; I believe so that I may understand.

Therefore, we need to ask God for the strength to endure and to remain faithful.

God does not rescue us from all our weaknesses, but rather God wants us to rely on His strength in our weakness.  It is when we accept and embrace our weaknesses and rely on God’s strength that we can say that we are truly strong, for then it is God’s strength working through us, and not our own strength. 

God did not heal St. Paul of his disease. It maybe the same answer God is offering to your unanswered prayer today. God is just answering you in a way you did not ask for, did not seek, and do not want.

Think about it:  Could it be that despite your crippling illness, or distressful family situation or whatever bad circumstances you find yourself in now - that God will use you?

In other words: Could it be that your suffering is meant to serve some higher purpose?

Maybe so.  If so, then learn to trust in the grace, and the sufficiency of Christ, who Himself chose to serve God in the weakness of the cross rather than seize the power of legions of angels to defeat the Romans and the misguided Jewish leaders.

If we unite and offer our suffering with the suffering of Christ, then our suffering becomes a participation in God’s work of salvation, our suffering becomes redemptive and therefore our suffering has meaning and purpose.

St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta said: “You will never know that Jesus is all you need until the day Jesus is all you have.”

Yes - Pleasant experiences make life delightful… but - Painful experiences lead to growth.

If in this life we knew or experience only success and only pleasant experiences, there would be no possibility of developing character, gratitude, or wisdom. Suffering is a part of God’s creation, not as punishment but suffering  is essential to soul-making.

Deep unspeakable suffering may be called – in fact - a baptism, a re-generation, initiation into a new state of being.  Of course, it does not mean that we pray for suffering or that we are expected to enjoy our suffering, but we are called to endure our suffering in the assurance that God will use it for good.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul said: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Amen.  God bless…