And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. — 2 Corinthians 12:9
It may seem ironic to say that some of my most spiritual moments happened in the worst moments of someone else’s life. But it is true.
Working as a paramedic placed me in situations that no amount of training fully prepares you for. There were moments when I had done everything I knew to do, and it was not enough. The medication was administered, and the condition still worsened. We attempted the intervention, and the suffering continued. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the person to recover, to stabilize, to step back from the edge they were standing on. The limits of my training and my skill and my experience became very clear very quickly.
In those moments I felt helpless. Completely and honestly helpless. And it was in exactly those moments that I found God moving.
Not in the calls where I had everything under control. Not in the moments where my training was sufficient, and my skill was adequate, and the outcome went the way I hoped. In the moments where I had run completely out of what I had to offer. Where the gap between what the situation required and what I could provide was impossible to bridge on my own.
Paul describes something similar in 2 Corinthians 12. He had a thorn in the flesh, a specific, persistent struggle he had asked God to remove three separate times. Three times the answer was no. And the reason God gave was not what Paul expected.
My strength is made perfect in weakness. The word perfect here means brought to its full expression. Complete. God’s strength does not need our strength to function. In fact, our strength can sometimes work against it. When we have enough of our own resources to manage the situation, we tend to manage it ourselves. We find a way. We figure it out. We rely on what we have and get through it, and the credit stays with us.
But in the moments where our resources run out, where our training fails, and our medication does not work, and our best effort is not enough. something shifts. The space that our own ability was occupying becomes available for something else. And what moves into that space is the strength of God, unobstructed and uncompeted with.
My grace is sufficient for thee. That word sufficient carries the idea of genuinely, completely adequate, not barely enough but fully enough for whatever the moment requires. The grace God offers in the place of our weakness is not the consolation prize for the strength we did not receive. It is the actual provision. What He intended to give all along.
Paul’s response to all of this is one of the most counterintuitive statements in Scripture. He says he will most gladly glory in his infirmities. Not reluctantly accept them. Not endure them with gritted teeth while secretly wishing they were gone. Glory in them. Because he understood what they were actually producing. The power of Christ resting upon him in a way that his own strength never could have accommodated.
Most of us spend enormous energy trying to hide our weakness, overcome it, or apologize for it. The idea that the weakness might actually be the point runs completely counter to everything the world tells us about effectiveness and capability.
But the most spiritual moments I experienced as a paramedic were not the calls where I had everything under control. They were the ones where I had nothing left. And in that nothing, God had everything He needed.
Your weakness is not something God is working around. It is what He is working through. Let Him.
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