A college recruiter interviewed a high school basketball star. The recruiter said, "I hear you're pretty good." "The best there is," the player replied. "I averaged 45 points per game. I was the best rebounder in my high school. And I led our team to 3 undefeated seasons and 3 state championships."
"That's incredible," said the recruiter. "Tell me," he said, "Do you have any weaknesses?"
"Well," said the youngster sheepishly, "I do have a tendency to exaggerate." We all have weaknesses. There are no perfect "10s" in this world. That may be a difficult thing for some of us to admit. For example, 90% of men rank themselves above average in athletic ability. Men sometimes exaggerate. Some of us are legends in our own minds. We all have our weaknesses.
Some of our weaknesses are physical, some are mental, some are moral. Some of those weaknesses have to do with our work, some with our family life, some with our relationship with Christ. Some of us, for example, have short tempers, others of us lack diplomacy. Some of us are too proud, others of us lack back-bone. There are no perfect "10s." Maybe that is just as well.
The Apostle Paul had his weaknesses. One in particular caused him much heartache. We don't know for certain what it was. He called it his "thorn in the flesh." Some have suggested that Paul suffered from epileptic seizures. If so, he was in good company. Two of the most powerful men who ever lived-- Julius Caesar and Napoleon--were epileptics, as have been many other great individuals. In Paul's day there was no Dilantin or Phenobarbital to control seizures. If that was his thorn, he was stuck with it.
Paul prayed that God would deliver him from his affliction. Three times he beseeched God about this matter, but God's answer to him was, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." In other words, God seemed to be saying to Paul, "Trust me, Paul. I will take care of you. But I can use your weakness to demonstrate my power."
We can learn from Paul's experience. Paul not only learned to accept his thorn, he even began to boast about his weakness in order to show the power of Christ. Our weakness can become our strength as well. Some of us may even learn to rejoice that we are not a perfect "10."
OUR WEAKNESSES CAN BECOME STRENGTHS, FIRST OF ALL, IF THEY CAUSE US TO GROW.
That is true. Too much early success in life has a tendency to spoil us. We begin to think of ourselves as clever. We begin to rely on our ability rather than our hard work. Worse yet, we begin to rely on ourselves rather than on God. Everyone who makes a major contribution to life knows what it is to have failures.
Woody Allen, that witty man who has produced so many classic films, flunked Motion Picture Production at the City College of New York. Leon Uris, writer of one of the most popular novels of this century, EXODUS, failed English 3 times in high school. Everyone who makes a major contribution to life knows what it is to have failures.
Indeed, those early failures can be a major contributor to later successes.
The late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said she realized that she was not beautiful, but that her lack of beauty was a blessing in disguise, since it forced her to develop her inner resources. As someone has said, our disappointments are "His appointments." By God's grace painful experiences or situations can help us grow.
John Killinger once told a moving story about a couple whose newborn son was mentally retarded. They were crushed, of course. Still, they loved him as they would any child of theirs. They built a bedroom with glass walls so that wherever they were in the house they would be able to keep an eye on him. For 17 years, the mother slept next to the boy with her hand next to his heart. If he ever started having trouble breathing, she would be able to wake up and give him artificial respiration. For 17 years, they lived this way.
One sad day, however, a neighbor's girl fell from a tree and hurt her arm. The mother left her son to rush the girl to a hospital. As she was standing in the emergency room of the hospital with the little girl, her husband came in carrying the body of their son. He had died while she was at the hospital. His father had tried vainly to revive him.
As the boy lay before them in peace, the parents wept. But then they gave thanks to God for the gift of their son. "For," his mother said, "he taught us how to love." Our weaknesses can become strengths if they help us grow.
THEY CAN ALSO BECOME STRENGTHS IF THEY MAKE US MORE DETERMINED.
Several years later the doctor's daughter and son-in-law were killed in an auto accident. The doctor's 10-year-old granddaughter was left an orphan. He took her in. One day the child was stricken with a crippling and incurable condition. The doctor learned there was a young doctor in the Midwest who had been getting excellent results in the treatment of this particular disease. He took his granddaughter to see the doctor.
The young physician was lame. He was the deformed baby into whose mouth the older doctor had breathed 35 years before. Because of his own infirmity, the young doctor had specialized in this crippling disease. The treatment on the older doctor's grandchild was successful and the little girl was returned to normal health.
It is not rare at all that a doctor with a deformed leg should specialize in crippling diseases and even become a star in his field. Such things happen all the time. When a person has an area of weakness, they will often work so hard to overcome their weakness that it becomes a tremendous asset.
Some of the most eloquent orators and actors who have ever lived started out with severe speech defects.
We are told, for example, that Winston Churchill, had such a congenital lisp and stutter that doctors advised him against entering any occupation in which speaking was an important part. Yet he became the most influential speaker of our century.
One of the most beautiful speaking voices on stage and screen today is that of James Earl Jones. Did you know that Jones has long battled a severe stuttering problem? From age 9 until his mid-teens he had to communicate with teachers and classmates by handwritten notes. A high school English teacher gave him the help he needed, but he still struggles with his problem to this day. Yet there is no finer speaking voice than his. He was listed recently among the 10 actors with the most beautiful speaking voice. We can do that, too. We can allow our weakness to increase our determination to succeed.
OUR WEAKNESS CAN ALSO BECOME A STRENGTH IF IT HELPS US INNOVATE.
One of the most revealing lines in literature appears in the opening paragraph of A. A. Milne's WINNIE-THE-POOH: "Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way...if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it!"
If you keep bumping your head coming down the stairs, maybe it is time you stop for a moment and think if there is another way it might be done. Sometimes our so-called weaknesses are simply warning signs to us that we are on the wrong road.
Elie Wiesel once noted that according to Jewish tradition, creation did not end with man. It began with him. When He created man, God gave him a secret--and that secret was not how to begin, but how to BEGIN AGAIN. In other words, "it is not given to man to begin; that privilege is God's alone. But it is given to man to begin again...." Some of us need to begin again.
That was true of that noble patriot and orator Patrick Henry. For years of his life he was a miserable failure. He and his brother opened a store, but it failed. Next Patrick's father- in-law set him up in farming. Patrick was given 300-acres, a house, and 6 slaves. Even with that start, though, Patrick couldn't make it as a farmer.
Finally, on the advice of friends, Patrick turned to law. He was a natural persuader and a captivating orator. As a lawyer, Patrick was an instant success. Further, his was exactly the voice that was needed to launch the colonies toward a break with England. Patrick Henry was not a failure. He was simply in the wrong field for much of his life. What may seem to be weakness under certain circumstances may be just warning signs that we need to make a new start.
FINALLY, OUR WEAKNESSES MAY BECOME STRENGTHS IF THEY REMIND US OF OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD.
Perhaps if it had not been for his thorn in the flesh, he would have leaned upon his own ability rather than the power of God working through him. And you and I would never had heard the name of Paul. His weakness became his strength. His scar became a star. His hurt became a halo. And the same thing can happen to us--if our weakness helps us to grow, if our weakness makes us more determined to succeed, if our weakness causes us to try new things, and if our weakness causes us to rely on God.
