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Do you sometimes feel inadequate?  Unable?  Do you feel weak?  Insufficient? Me, too!

I’m convinced that, if we could sit and talk with the Apostle Paul, he would have a quick response to our struggles.  I believe, upon hearing about our weakness and inadequacies, his response would be a hearty, “Great! I’m glad you realize it!” He said as much in his second letter to the believers in Corinth.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

He repeated it in chapter 12.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9, ESV)

I often take the challenges and difficulties of each day as obstacles to my walk with God. Paul says just the opposite!  The weakness and inadequacy that we so fear is, according to Paul (in God’s Word), sent by God’s grace to keep our hearts focused on Christ.

The old saints understood this in a way we need to learn. Here are just three short quotes from a sermon  preached in 1718 by Isaac Watts, the author of the hymns “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross” and “Joy to the World”: 

“A perpetual sense of our own insufficiency to give and maintain this life, awakens our faith to go out of ourselves, to live upon another, even upon Him who is Almighty and All sufficient.”

“For he that feels continually his own weakness, and is sensible how much dreadful influence the infirmities of the body have upon the mind, is constrained to go out continually to Jesus Christ for help and strength.”

“When I feel myself all weakness, then I run out of myself to the all-sufficiency of another, and I find full strength in my Redeemer.”

(“The Believer Living By Faith” in Nine Sermons Preached in the Years 1718-1719, New York, 1813.)

So the next time you feel weak, inadequate, or unable, instead of giving in to shame or fear, remember that God Himself has designed those emotions to cause you to depend on the only One who is truly strong… Jesus Christ.