Weak is the new strong
We live in a culture that prides itself on being strong or at least expressing the appearance of being strong. If you scroll through your Instagram feed on any given day you will see pictures of people and all their "best" moments. They have been perfectly captured, filtered, and cropped to get just the right shot. It isn’t that these moments are incorrect but simply the story of these moments are many times incomplete. You get to see the best of an individual and it can lead you to feel like maybe you just are not good enough, strong enough, or cool enough.
However, you got to see only their strong moments, not their weak moments, failures, or faults.
I think that what our world needs in a culture consistently focusing on the strong is to understand that weak is the new strong. I am not saying to become a victim and shout how bad your day was through social media or to post your “all natural” photos to somehow compensate for all your “perfect images” I am saying maybe feeling weak is not weak. Maybe it is an opportunity to discover true strength. Strength that can only be found from moments of weakness.
Paul, the apostle writes these words in reference to his weaknesses.
2 Cor. 12:9-10 NLT
“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Here we discover the secret of Paul's strength.
It was not to project strength or try to express some form of superiority to others because he was an apostle but it was to express that in his weakest moments there was an opportunity to find strength.
I remember a moment back in college where I was working out by myself and I tried bench pressing the heaviest weight I have ever lifted. As I lowered the bar and touched my chest I began to recognize the error I had just made. I could not push the weight back up and now the weight was beginning to crush my chest. I had only one option, I had to find a place of strength I did not know I had. So with all the might I could muster up I managed to push the weight back up to the top and get it settled.
It was in this moment where I had to press I found a new level of strength. I did not know I had it in me until I had to press through and overcome. Many times this is how life is, we do not know what we have in us until the opportunity arises.
Maybe you are in a moment of weakness and you want to appear strong right now. I believe you have a strength in you, but you must allow this opportunity of weakness to help you find a source of strength in Christ that you did not know you had. Don't just try to appear strong or act strong but choose to become weak before God and He will give you a power that you did not know you had. He will show you where you are growing and how you are becoming strong through this moment of weakness.
Here are a few good questions to ask yourself to help you discover a strength you never knew you had.
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