Knowing your weakness is the source of divine grace

By Stephen Ojapah MSP 

“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). The world understands greatness as the ability to conquer and destroy. Alexander is called the great because he led the Roman army to great victory in so many battles. Osman is revered as the father of the great Ottoman Empire because of his military adventures. (The Ottoman Empire was a state that controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman.)

Weakness in character and policy implementation is generally looked down on in the world. Paul presents the exact opposite of what the world celebrates. “When I am weak then I am” he says. He further lists what he is willing to accept as a way of life for the sake of Christ: insults, persecutions, hardships, and difficulties. Paul is willing to embrace generously for the sake of Christ what every average person fights day in and day out to avoid, 

Paul talks about the grace of God in the preceding verses. “My grace is enough for you, for power is perfected in weakness. So it is with the greatest gladness that I boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may pitch its tent upon me (2 Cor 12: 8-9). Paul was a normal human being whom God used to accomplish mighty works in history. After Jesus, one of the most important Christian thinkers that has shaped Christian theology in the New Testament is St Paul. This was a man full of limitations, but grace at work changed the quality of his witnessing to the gospel. And his limitations are the same with the man of the 21st century: pride, anger, temptations of the flesh, and un-forgiveness. 

God has always demonstrated his power in the life of any individual- small or great- who accepts with humility his weaknesses, limitations and failings in exchange for God’s supernatural grace and blessings. In 2nd Samuel (12:1-25), God sent the prophet Nathan to communicate to David his decision on him after his double sin of adultery with Uriah’s wife and the eventual murder of Uriah at the battle field. In a very beautiful parable Nathan presented to David how greedy and selfish he had acted by taking Uriah’s wife: “In a certain town there were two men one rich, the other poor. The poor man had nothing at all except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. Now the rich man received a visitor, but he would not take from his own flocks and herds to prepare a meal for the wayfarer who had come to him. Instead he took the poor man’s ewe lamb made a meal of it for his visitor. David grew very angry with that man and said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this merits death! He shall restore the ewe lamb fourfold because he has done this and has had no pity.’ And Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

In 2nd Samuel (12:13), David said: “I have sinned against the Lord.  This acceptance of guilt softened the judgment of God on him and opened for him the treasures of divine grace. David repented of his sins and God still found him worthy of being called a man after his own heart and being an ancestor of the Messiah. So weaknesses of any sort in the eyes of the world are a failure and “bus stop” for spiritual and physical development, but they become a springboard of development and means of achieving divine grace when we remain open to it. 

In our journey of life, there are a number of factors that block us from recognizing our weaknesses, hence we make little or no progress in overcoming them. These factors, itemized by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli in his master work, The Spiritual Combat and A Treatise on Peace of Soul are

(1) Lack of meditation: It was Socrates, the ancient philosopher, who once said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Daily examination of conscience puts us in check with what we got right or wrong during the course of the day.

(2) Humility: Acknowledging our weaknesses is virtue that only God can grant to us when we earnestly beg him. We must accept the fact that we do not possess it, but that of ourselves we are utterly incapable of acquiring it. And we beg this favor not once in a life time but continually. 

(3) We must gradually accustom ourselves to distrust our own strength, to dread the illusions of our own mind, the strong tendency of our nature to sin, and the overwhelming number of enemies that surround us; their subtlety, experience, and strength surpass ours, for they can transform themselves into angels of light and lie in ambush for us as we advance towards heaven.

 (4) As  often as we commit fault, we must examine ourselves in order to discover our vulnerable points. God permits us to fall only so that we may gain a deeper insight into ourselves, that we may learn to despise ourselves as wretched creatures and to desire honestly to be disregarded by others. Without this, we cannot hope to obtain a distrust of self which is rooted in humility and knowledge of our own weakness.  

With democracy as a preferred form of government in some parts of the world including Nigeria, we see politicians presenting themselves for elections as saints, who have no business with personal failures and shortcomings. It is understandable, because they world has no space for “weak and sinful” people as leaders. Six years ago, I was fortunate to attend a campaign rally of a local government chairmanship candidate in Katsina state, and I heard a man speaking about his vision for the local government. He mentioned his personal weaknesses as a human being. I was amazed to hear him present himself in that manner. Two things he said that has remained with me for a long time are first, “I am not promising you any development because the system will not allow me to develop you. But I promise to use the funds that will be sent from the central purse to pay workers as it meant to. Secondly, he told them he was suffering from chronic diabetes and so he didn’t know how much life God would give him, therefore will try to work as fast as he could in case he dies before the end of his mandate.

Most politicians do not present themselves as they are to the citizens for fear of losing their favour, approval or votes. They certainly do not present themselves as weak men, or men who are liable to sickness. But in this politician I saw a man who is strengthened by grace because he was in touch with his weaknesses. 

Fr Stephen Ojapah is a priest of the Missionary Society of St Paul. He is equally the director for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism for the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, a member of IDFP. He is also a KAICIID Fellow