Strength Versus Weakness

4 hours ago
3 min read

Who “likes” to be weak? Morgan Krueger helps us embrace the gift weakness gives when we embrace it.

Elisa

Strength Versus Weakness

by Morgan Krueger

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Graham’s little eyes stared up at me, awaiting my answer. I guess I wasn’t hiding it all as well as I thought. The answer to the question was pretty complicated, actually.

First off, it had been a season where our family was hit with sickness. It was nothing serious in the long term, but it left Ryan (my husband) and me running on E, trying to meet the basic needs of the boys as well as our own. On top of that, both boys were going through sleep regressions, leaving us exhausted for obvious reasons.

Additionally, it was a season when Ryan and I were carrying a lot from a work standpoint. I realized that I had given my yes to so many things—good things—but that it was stretching me too thin. Then add in normal life things, like showing up for friends, cooking dinners, and various annual appointments, and it all felt like it was going to crush me.

Given that it’s not Graham’s role to carry the load of all of the above in his mommy’s life, I looked at him, weary, exhausted, and weak, and said with a warm smile, “Yeah, buddy, I’m going to be okay.”

Because that was the truth, I was going to be okay, even if at that moment, I wasn't sure that I was.

I’m just going to say it: I don’t like being weak. And as much as I struggle to believe it, weakness is beautiful. And even better, it’s biblical.

As much as weakness is frustrating to experience, what if there’s something that Jesus wants to accomplish in us as weakness flows through us? What if there’s more inside a life of weakness than just feelings of frustration and grieving the limitations? What if there’s a strength to be found within the frailty of the finite?

The Jesus way means embracing our weakness.

The apostle Paul understood something special in this area. In fact, he dedicated part of 2 Corinthians 12 to explain his “why” of embracing weakness.

He started this passage by saying that he refused to boast about spiritual revelations. In fact, he describes that in order not to become conceited, he was given what he explained as a “thorn in my flesh.” As he pleaded with God to remove it, Paul revealed something powerful that God spoke to him regarding the thorn:

But he 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 of my weaknesses, so 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. (2 Cor. 12:9–10)

For me, maybe the most powerful word in the entire passage comes from the words that God himself spoke: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

When you hear the word sufficient, what do you think of? A few words that come to my mind to describe it are enough, complete, and adequate.

And the truth is, we really can’t believe that God’s grace for us is sufficient until we realize that we are insufficient. We can’t need his grace to be enough for us if we are trying to claw our way to our own enough-ness. It’s impossible for us to receive his sufficiency to complete us until we realize we are utterly incomplete without him. And lastly, we can’t crave his beautiful and adequate grace until we are met with the reality of our own inadequacy.

Whose grace is sufficient for our insufficient, inadequate, and incomplete lives? His.

And his grace is sufficient in what areas of our lives? All areas.

In our work. In our friendships. In our classrooms. In our exhaustion. In our humanity.

Morgan Krueger is a Jesus follower, wife, mother, and author who found her voice connecting with women seeking biblical freedom from the brokenness of shame. She is the author of Made to Magnify and Goodbye Hiding, Hello Freedom. Passionate about the redemption and joy found in following Jesus, Morgan aims to keep that at the center of all she does. In her downtime, you can find Morgan enjoying the significance of the mundane, including being silly with her kids, encouraging women through words, and adventuring with her husband, Ryan, in Franklin, TN. Learn more about Morgan at morgankrueger.com.