Seven years ago I stepped down as pastor of an established church and began the process of planting a church near downtown Toronto. I felt excited and scared: excited because of the possibilities, and scared because of the uncertainty and risk.
Ten days in we got a phone call. I won’t go into details, but our family faced a significant crisis. To make it worse, we’d just lost our church family. We felt isolated and scared.
By the end of the year the crisis had compounded. I wasn’t sure we’d see a happy ending to our crisis. I complained to my wife: I had longed for a strong start to our new church. “What if our weakness isn’t a distraction from how God wants us to plant this church?” she responded. “What if it’s how God wants us to plant this church?”
Weakness Is the Way
We don’t know for sure what Paul’s struggle, his “thorn in the flesh,” was. But Paul, whose letters are full of suffering, was clear: “On my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses” (2 Corinthians 12:5). When he pleaded for God to remove his weakness, Jesus promised his grace instead. Paul spoke of being content, even glad for his weakness. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
We don’t think this way. To be weak is to be weak. How could weakness equal strength? Paul signals a counterintuitive truth: our weakness is not a problem to God or an obstacle to what God wants to do in us and through us. Paul’s ministry was better because of his weakness. He probably didn’t like it, but he learned to be grateful for it.
We tend to celebrate excellence, position, and status, but God does some of his best work in our weakness. “We want to be the best and do the best,” comments George Guthrie. “But the secret of Paul’s excellence … is his weakness. He knows that all the suffering and trials he has faced are the seedbed for kingdom fruitfulness. God delights in using the brokenness of weakness to accomplish his purposes.”
God Uses Weakness
I’ve shared this story with our young church many times. Looking back, I still wouldn’t want to repeat the events of that year. But God worked through our weakness. He taught me that I couldn’t plant a church from a posture of strength. He humbled me. He made me more prayerful. He strengthened our marriage. He made us more understanding of other strugglers. He embedded a mindset within us: we couldn’t do this on our own, but God can give us grace in our weakness.
“Your neediness, offered well to someone else, can be one of the great gifts you give to your church,” writes Ed Welch. I no longer view weakness as an obstacle to what God wants to do in and through me. I’m learning that there’s strength you can’t get anywhere else but in weakness, and grace available to all those who come to the end of themselves. I’m learning the strength of weakness.
