… Because I am Weak

I am a Christian because… I am weak.

One of the many criticisms that I’ve heard of Christianity is that it is a “crutch” for people who just can’t handle the world on their own.  But I’d like to suggest that we all can’t handle the world on our own.

I’m posting this a little later than usual today because I have had a ridiculous amount of tests and papers and projects due- they’ve had me running all over campus and not sleeping enough, but also been rather thought-provoking.  (Then again, this is me that we’re talking about.  I find pretty much everything to be thought-provoking).

But let me give you some examples.  I’m taking Anatomy and Physiology right now, and we study each of the body systems and discuss how they work.  The last slide of the lecture notes is usually the same- it’s about the development of the system.  My professor discusses how the system develops prenatally and in infancy, and then includes some information about how the system changes throughout the lifespan.  I’ve grown to almost dread these last few slides because they always end with a description of how the system falls apart as we get older.  Our senses weaken… our muscles shrink… we essentially gradually fall apart, which would be incredibly depressing if that was all that we had- if there was nothing else to live for.

So physically, we are weak.

My other example comes from the paper that I wrote for my dance seminar.  (Do you like how random the classes I’m taking are, compared to one another?  I’m a girl of many interests that don’t always obviously go together.)  We had to write about what aspects of our culture, society, and heritage influence our dance.  I brought up how prevalent technology seems to be, but then pointed out that a good part of the world’s population doesn’t have access to iPods and Facebook accounts.  Even though we’re not connected with them through the Internet, all of us that are healthily functioning have the joint human experience of emotion.  (I went on to talk about how the effects of emotion on dance.)

We’re not invincible.  We get hurt emotionally just as we do physically, and experience emotional pain just as we do physical pain.  We’re weak.

One popular artist wrote a song called “Forever,” in which he says in the chorus, “It may not mean nothin’ to ya’ll, but understand nothing was done for me.  And I don’t plan on stopping at all, I want this [stuff] forever.”

I, of course, change a whole bunch of the words, but in particular change part of the chorus to “understand much has been done for me.”  I didn’t control what family I was born into or how intelligent I am or who my friends are.  When you think about it, we have control over very little.  I work in an infant studies lab where one of our studies involves children choosing between one of two toys.

We always tell the toddlers that they’ve made “a lot of hard decisions!”  For them, it just might have been.  They had to come and sit and watch a perhaps boring presentation and then make a bunch of choices!  Yes, they got to choose the toy, but the researcher set the toy in front of them.  Their parents brought them into the lab.  They couldn’t have made their “hard decision” if they hadn’t been helped.

The same goes for us.  We think we’ve got it together- we think we worked things out just because God didn’t appear in a dramatic puff of smoke and switch things around in a physical form right before our eyes.

It’s definitely reassuring to know that someone who loves me is in control and is carrying out a plan that is good.  It’s actually reassuring to acknowledge that I am weak.  But being a Christian isn’t just about weakness; it’s about finding strength in Christ.  His strength is so much more than our own, regardless of how strong we think we are.

As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9, “[God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Advertisement