Our Weakness is our Glory

The following is from Norman Grubb's book God Unlimited:

"Battered about by our failures through self-effort, we are in danger of pointing an accusing finger at the helplessness of self. We are ashamed of our weakness. We condemn ourselves for our fears, our shrinkings, our questionings. It is the commonest thing to hear Christians commiserating their feeble and foolish humanity before God. We bemoan the limitations of our flesh, as if flesh was inherently an evil thing. No, indeed.

"Our weakness is our glory. It is that which necessitates the indwelling of God. That is our claim on Him, as new men in Christ. If He makes weak and ignorant humans, then He must be their strength and wisdom, for He only makes empty vessels to fill them.

"It is, therefore, a great release when we realize that we are meant to feel our inability. Indeed, it should be our constant reaction in every situation. When it isn’t we are on dangerous ground. It is the wisdom of God which keeps us progressing from problem to problem, from one tight corner to another.

"The most illuminating autobiographical account of a man who had learned this lesson is Paul’s in his second letter to the Corinthians. It scintillates with this truth. It is Paul the human, thoroughly human, radiating Christ. The human sticks right out of chapter after chapter; but, mark you, it is not Paul condemning himself because he was human, and feeling that he needs cleansing from it. It is Paul who has a redeemed humanity through the cross, and is now occupied with Christ coming through His humanity in risen and saving power.

"It is the Paul of Galatians 2:20, who has finished once for all with his self-centred humanity ('I have been crucified with Christ'): the Paul who is now a cleansed and renewed human ('nevertheless I live'): the Paul whose attention is centred on the Other Self operating through him ('Christ liveth in me').

"And he speaks boldly of the flesh, not as an evil thing, but as man’s normal human condition: only evil, if given a control it has no right to. 'Though we have known Christ after the flesh' : 'my flesh had no rest . . . without were fightings, within were fears' : 'there was given to me a thorn in the flesh' : 'though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh' : and in that flesh, 'pressed out of measure,' despairing of life, troubled, perplexed, cast down, sorrowful, poor, but 'though weak in Him, we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.'"