Our Weakness, His Strength : Rachel Cook

The cry of a newborn baby. It is the strongest moment in the labor process, yet it is made by the smallest and weakest individual in the room. It is not the shrill of the cry or the decibels it hits that makes it the strongest moment. Really, it’s not the cry at all, but it is what the cry symbolizes that makes it the strongest moment. It is breath in the lungs, health, excitement for the future. For doctors, it is the strongest and most reassuring sign of the ability to breathe. Well, simply put... it is new life. 

Joel 3:10 KJV says, “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’”  

There are moments in life when we feel weak, or a situation has “sucked the life out of you.” Maybe you feel like you’re at the end of your rope and there is no hope left, and you’re too depleted of energy to even think about trying again.  

Paul also tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “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.”  

How can someone be weak and strong at the same time? 

As humans, we rarely think about needing strength until we feel weak. It isn’t until you can’t open the pickle jar that you realize your strength has diminished. However, it is during the difficulties of our personal weaknesses that we realize we need to fully rely on Jesus’ divine strength to get us through. It’s only after the pains of labor that the strength of the baby’s cry can overwhelm us.

October 4, 2020