It is GOD who is STRONG, when WE are WEAK.

How to endure all this suffering – great or small? How to look to the resurrection, with perseverance? St. Paul too had this question, and the Lord responded with the first line of this quote. GRACE. St. Paul emphasizes here the reality that it is through our weaknesses that the Lord is able to work. When we recognize this truth, than the power of the Lord can dwell in you. What is this Power? The power of the Cross –the Suffering Lord.  Seeing with the eyes of the Lord we find that we must acknowledge our weakness (Paul uses the word boast) in order for this to happen. One cannot fill empty pitcher, if one insists that it is full. One cannot appreciate the new flow of ice water, if one does not first know what it is like to be thirsty! And so, St. Paul not only boasts, proclaims, accepts his weakness and suffering, but is content with because of the promise of a fullness of the Spirit in Christ. When he is weak, he is strong, because it is Christ who is crucified in him and the Power of this saving act that is his strength.

Clearly it is difficult to understand and grasp that our weakness is Power – we often fall into the trap of understanding the way of the “Jews” or the way of the “Gentiles”.  To believe that we are sharing in the God’s Power specifically though our weakness is so difficult to grasp – in part – because it is difficult to grasp that it is through God’s becoming weak that we were saved.  Yet, it is not with the eyes of human intelligence that ought to judge, but with the wisdom of God brought to us through faith:

 “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”