Strength in Weakness

July 1, 2016

“When I am weak then I am strong…” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

In these eight words the Apostle Paul gives us a strength formula.  When you are having a serious operation, instead of counting to 10 as the anesthesiologist administers the medicine that knocks you out, I suggest you say these eight words: When I am weak then I am strong.  While most of us are ‘control freaks,’ after experiencing the full effects of anesthesia we give up all control.  But, as believers when we give up all control, we will find underneath the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)  This makes us stronger than we have ever been.

Paul, quoting Isaiah, writes the key to spiritual strength is that God gives strength to the weary and power to the weak. One translation reads that God’s strength looks good on weak people.  The key to spiritual strength is therefore not found in our strength but in our weakness. These eight words are therefore the formula for strength.  They will give you great spiritual strength in your time of absolute weakness.  Discover with the Apostle Paul that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, not in trying to make ourselves strong.  We find our greatest strength in the Everlasting Arms that are there underneath us.

Prove what Isaiah and Paul teach us.  The everlasting arms are there and they give us more strength than we have ever known as healthy active people.  The next time you experience weakness on any level of life remember to pray these eight words: “When I am weak then I am strong.”

You will soon find yourself saying, “I’m not but He is; I can’t, but He can;” and then, “I didn’t but He did” when you let God perfect His strength in your weakness.

Dick Woodward, 26 February 2014

Editor’s Note: After fixing up this blog post for today, the Blog-Posting Elf just realized that this was the last blog Papa wrote before he went to rest in the Everlasting Arms of God on March 8, 2014.  As all who knew him attest, Dick Woodward exhibited God’s strength in his weakness in extraordinary ways through countless days of weakness and suffering that was especially challenging as he wrote these words.  As he would say, “I didn’t, but God did” in and through him… even to his last breath.  

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God’s Strength Outweighs My Weakness

March 10, 2015

“And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2Corinthians 12:9-10)

I shall never forget an afternoon in the late 1970s when I discovered that I was not able to lift the set of weights I regularly lifted. I then tried to mow my lawn and realized I was too weak to cut the grass.  Finally, I tried to replace the license plates on my car and learned to my horror that I was too weak to do even that.

Although it was two years before I could accept the awful reality that I would never feel full strength again, my weakness made it possible to resonate with Paul in a deeper way when he described the way his weakness drove him to access the strength and power of the living risen Christ.

I’ve had times of such great weakness, especially while ministering, when I’ve thought: There is absolutely nothing coming from me; everything is coming from God! In spite of his great weakness, as God used Paul to make the Church a worldwide force, he put into words what I have felt many times:  “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God!”  (2Corinthians 3:5. italics added)

These were merely familiar Scripture verses until I had no strength of my own.  There is a dimension of the power and strength of the risen Christ I did not discover until I was powerless.  The vehicle that brings the grace of God to me which outweighs my challenges is the strength of the risen, living Christ. Paul’s experience of weakness, recorded for us in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, directed me to that miracle.

When we have no strength of our own, we simply must learn that is possible to tap into the strength of the living Christ.  I now thank God for my experience of weakness that forced me to discover the strength of the risen living Christ that outweighs my weakness – and helped me discover the happiness that doesn’t make good sense.

Dick Woodward,  Happiness That Doesn’t Make Good Sense

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A Strength Formula

February 26, 2014

“When I am weak then I am strong…” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

In these eight words the Apostle Paul gives us a strength formula.  When people are having a serious operation, instead of counting to 10 as the anesthesiologist administers the medicine that knocks them out, I suggest they say these eight words.  While most of us are ‘control freaks,’ after experiencing the full effects of anesthesia we give up all control.  But, as believers when we give up all control, we will find underneath the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)  This makes us stronger than we have ever been.

Paul, quoting Isaiah, writes the key to spiritual strength is that God gives strength to the weary and power to the weak. One translation reads that God’s strength looks good on weak people.  The key to spiritual strength is therefore not found in our strength but in our weakness. These eight words are therefore the formula for strength.  They will give you great spiritual strength in your time of absolute weakness.  Discover with the Apostle Paul that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, not in trying to make ourselves strong.  We find our greatest strength in the Everlasting Arms that are there underneath us.

Prove what Isaiah and Paul teach us.  The everlasting arms are there and they give us more strength than we have ever known as healthy active people.  The next time you experience weakness on any level of life remember to pray these eight words: “When I am weak then I am strong.”

You will soon find yourself saying, “I’m not but He is; I can’t, but He can;” and then, “I didn’t but He did” when you let God perfect His strength in your weakness.

Editor’s Note:  After a health hiatus from blogging, Papa (Dick Woodward) is back. We so appreciate the prayers that have lifted him up during abject weakness the past 6 weeks, beginning with a severe 2 week bronchial infection, a week in the hospital where he was treated for heart failure, and a severe 10-day stomach virus that has left him completely pooped out. Although only 30% of Papa’s heart now functions & for many days he couldn’t even speak, his strength and continued presence with us is totally by God’s miraculous grace.  Thank you for your continued prayers.

The Blog Posting Elf  (Dick’s daughter, Virginia)

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The Best Kept Secret of Spiritual Power

January 31, 2014

“…He gives power to the weak…” (Isaiah 40:29)

There are many ways to be powerful.  We can be physically powerful, intellectually powerful, or we can be spiritually powerful like the prophet who speaks for God with the energizing anointing of the Holy Spirit upon his words.  Often preachers seek out those who preach with great spiritual power trying to discover their secret.  Their pursuit of spiritual power is often accompanied by a frantic attempt to strengthen their own spiritual life.

As one of the most spiritually powerful people who ever lived, the Apostle Paul shared the best kept secret of spiritual power when he wrote: “When I am weak then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:10) He preceded that by claiming God told him:“My strength is made perfect in (your) weakness.” It is in this context that Paul told the Corinthian Church he was with them in great weakness.  He also challenged them to take a good look at their church because if they did they would realize: “God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty…” (1Corinthians 1:27)

Jesus taught that the first attitude we need to be salt and light is to be poor in spirit.  This means among other things that we are in touch with our spiritual weakness.  After we realize that we can’t do the work of God in our own power and offer ourselves as a conduit of what God wants to be and do through us, then God gives spiritual power to us in our weakness.

God gives power to the weak. We don’t find spiritual power by trying to make ourselves strong, but by confessing and accepting our weakness.

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Posted by Dick Woodward