Weakness

“…and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”
1 Co 1:25

Being strong and weak is just self-perception and does not really correspond with reality. If we look at ourselves from a human point of view, we are either stronger or weaker since we always use our neighbors as references with whom we compare ourselves. We are infinitely weak if we compare ourselves with the infinitely strong.

How do you perceive yourself?

I am just a son, yet I often look beyond that and consider myself more than what I am; I am mere mortal but I always see myself as semi-divine. I am not content to be flesh and blood; I want to be more than what I have been created to be. I want to jump higher and run faster than my fellowmen; I desire to achieve more than all the people before me have accomplished and no one after me may duplicate my feat. I want to be the one and only.

We are the weakest when we aspire to be the greatest. A monkey can be the best monkey he can be, but he will be the worst man if his ambition is to become a man. We can be the best we are created to, but we will become the worst if we intend to be something we are not. We can either be the best man or the worst god, and in the process of becoming a god we may become a grotesque creature who is neither man nor god.

I can strive to be the best I can be, but I can never be better than what I am supposed to be or am created to be. To be human is to be limited by our limitations, and some people do have more limitations than others. We have to accept who we are and seek to fulfill what we are destined to be and commissioned to do as a child of God and never compare ourselves with other people and become jealous or pompous. The Lord has given various amounts of talent to his servants and what he requires of them is that they invest what they have inherited.

We are the strongest when we know exactly who we are and faithfully do what the Lord calls us to do; we are the weakest when we try to be what we are not and aspire to do what is beyond our ability to do. The bright angel in heaven who rose up to the highest ended up sinking to the lowest.

I can either be the best preacher I can be or be the worst doctor or lawyer I may want to be. I am not saying that we should not try to better ourselves by climbing higher; what I mean is at some point in life we should learn to accept who we are and be thankful for what we have achieved by the talent with which we have been endowed by the Almighty.

“I hope someday I can finally be a hermit and not feel guilty about being a hermit,” I said to my son jokingly. It was no joke actually, for that was exactly how I felt. A hermit is probably nothing but a sanctified bum in some people’s eyes. Nonetheless, “so was I once myself a swinger of birches and so I dream of going back to be.”