When I am weak, then I am strong

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4: 8)

In my last post, Unexpected Turbulence, I wrote about the difficult season I’m in. Having left a job that was eating me alive in hopes of working for someone I believed was making a difference in the world, I found myself instead in a downward spiral marked by micromanagement, misrepresentation, and misery. I’m literally expecting to be let go any day.

In my former role, I interacted with team members and felt I was making a difference in the lives of everyone I communicated with. I am normally a happy, uplifting, encouraging person who always felt like my real job was sharing God’s love with everyone I encountered. Every text, every meeting I joined was an opportunity for me to shine, uplift, and help others. All of that is now gone.

In my current position, I have little to do but try to reconcile my former boss’s expenses from one year ago until today. Since her absence and my assignment to this task, I’ve learned that, as the CEO, no one questioned her actions – even when they went against existing policies.

As such, there are few accessible records, infrequent notes on her calendar to validate trip purposes, and little, if any, obtainable receipts. My task feels doomed to failure. For every three expenses submitted, two are rejected and returned. As an overachiever, I find overseeing implosions demoralizing. And yet, what can I do? I have been given no other assignment than this one. When this project is done, I can see no other outcome than the organization letting me go. There is no visible reason to keep paying me to do nothing.

And so, I’m doing a job with no future, working in a role with no interaction with others, with zero opportunity to shine God’s love, encourage anyone, or be the light of Christ to my peers. I’ve never held such a solitary, unredeeming role in my entire career. There is no value to my work – a concept, in and of itself, that feels completely bankrupt to a soul seeking to make a difference in the world.

Enter COVID into my already desolate experience. For the past two weeks, I’ve been knocked off my feet by a particularly brutal strain of COVID-19. In addition to the sore throat, body aches, chest congestion, nausea, and cough, I also had the relatively rare experience of infected taste buds that made everything I drank taste rancid.

I couldn’t help but feel as Solomon did when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, whose frequent refrain was “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Eccl. 1:14) Where is the color, the brightness, and the taste of redemptive work? I can’t find it right now.

King Solomon had it all – wisdom, wealth, and worldly respect. All these things were multiplied to Solomon when he humbly asked God to give him discernment to lead his nation after his father David’s death. For a time, Solomon was humbled by his Creator’s provision, as demonstrated by the way he led his people in worship and the dedication he showed in building the glorious tabernacle his father had designed under God’s guidance.

Ultimately, Solomon erred in his blatant disregard for his Creator’s directive against forming relationships with foreign wives, and everything went downhill from there. Despite his God-given intelligence, Solomon disregarded the advice in Deuteronomy 17:17 to “not take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray.” 1 Kings 11:2 further clarified God’s instructions: “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.”

Despite this warning, Solomon felt the need to enhance his kingdom’s wealth and riches by forming trade agreements and alliances with other nations and by taking numerous foreign wives as part of those bargains. 1 Kings 11: 1,3 explains that, “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women… He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away [from God].”  

After doing so, Solomon’s descent came at the expense not just of his nation’s turmoil but also of his own estrangement from his Heavenly Father. “For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God.” Shockingly, this man who declared his nation’s wholehearted devotion to his Creator in the dedication of the greatest tabernacle ever built on the face of the earth, ultimately worshipped foreign gods on altars built on high places, just as the nations God ordered the Israelites to defeat did.

Is it any wonder that the words Solomon recorded in the first chapter of his book of Ecclesiastes describe his emptiness without God.

1 “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’
says the Teacher.
‘Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.’
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.”

(Ecclesiastes 1: 1-18)

Like Solomon, my sole purpose can only be found in the worship of God. It is only by leaning on Christ’s power that I can find my strength. As the Apostle Paul said, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

And so, I will glorify Christ in this season when I can do nothing to advance myself; I can find no means to climb above on my own. “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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I thank God for this time when I must rely fully on my Savior. I give praise to Him for whatever He is perfecting in me. I will sing praise to my Creator for enacting the circumstances that have humbled, disrupted, and beaten me down so I can look up to His sustaining power, His perpetual promises, and His divine intervention.

It is in this time of surrender to my Heavenly Father that I find myself saying again, thank you, God, for being strong enough – for both of us.