What are your strengths? Maybe you are strong physically, smart intellectually, or gifted musically. Perhaps you have strong interpersonal skills. Our talents and abilities are gifts from God to use to serve him and those in his kingdom. But what about your weaknesses? We might be able to list even more of those. Oh, if only those weaknesses were gone so we could be even more effective in spreading the gospel message.

Paul, the inspired writer of 2 Corinthians, was frustrated by his weakness. In the verses preceding our reading Paul wrote that he pleaded with God to take away a thorn in his flesh. Certainly, God wouldn’t let Paul be hindered by this burden when he had such important work to do. That’s when God answered him, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Until his heavenly victory, Paul would never be free of earthly troubles and burdens, but he would always have God’s grace. This grace was enough, enough to conquer Paul’s hardships and challenges.

God’s grace is sufficient for us. It is not only sufficient but overflows daily into our lives. He lets us feel his grace so that we can show his love to others. He forgives our sins and leads us to learn and grow. He carries us through difficulties and guides us as we learn to trust more fully in him. And our hardships can be a source of encouragement to others who might also struggle.

God told Paul and all believers, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” The world scoffs at this idea. Wealth, strength, intelligence, influence, and power are valued. Weakness must be overcome at all costs. Actually, weakness has been overcome, but not in the way the world expected. The almighty God set aside his strength to come to this earth as a tiny baby. He gave up his heavenly kingdom to live among the common, weak, unimportant people. He even gave up his life to save ours. His apparent weakness was really power. Power to save all.

And God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. When we look at ourselves and see our limitations, we realize that it is God who works through us in this world. He can and does use frail human beings like us to spread his word. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7). We can boast in our weaknesses because that boasting is really about God’s strength. He can even use me, and he does.

So we are thankful, certainly for our strength, but even more so for our weakness because Christ’s power rests on us. And that is enough.