Grace is Enough/Bragging about Weakness

One of my biggest "Aha!" moments happened in grade 8.  
It was an epiphany, the realization of something I didn't understand before, something that forever changed the way I saw myself.

Boys in junior high like to test their strength against each other.  Everyone wants to prove how strong they are, and that they're stronger than the next boy.
They test this in the most primitive, rudimentary, and manly way possible:
They arm wrestle.


It's a simple test of strength:

• Whoever wins is stronger.  
• Whoever loses is humiliated.

Winning is followed by bragging and bravado.
Losing is followed by looking for someone else to wrestle, in hopes of beating them and saving face.

I played the game like everyone else.  I clearly wasn't the strongest kid in grade 8 - that title belonged to a kid named Adam.  I wasn't even close. But I arm wrestled along with everybody else, trying to establish myself among the alpha males.

And then it dawned on me.
It wasn't quite an "Aha!" moment.  It was more like an "Ohhh..." moment.

Whenever someone lost a match, and they wanted to wrestle someone else to regain face, they challenged me.

• I was the boy everyone else knew they could beat.
• I was the class weakling.

"Ohhh... I don't think this is a good thing."

I had athletic ability.  I had academics.  I had some other things going for me.
But from then on I knew it:  I was the weak kid.  That was the worst thing imaginable for a grade 8 boy.

I thought of ordering this kit that they advertised in comic books.



Or, I was going to have to accept myself for what I was.


The Apostle Paul was awesome.  He was driven, brave, tough, a leader, and confident.  He was the 'A' in "Alpha Male."
But he also had weakness.

He hated it.  It drove him crazy.  He prayed again and again, "God, take this away! Fix this problem! I can't stand it any more!"

And God said, "No."
"My grace is all that you need.  My power works best in your weakness."

That phrase changed everything about Paul, how he saw himself, and how he saw God.
And he was thankful for it.

"Now I am glad to boast about my weakness..."
What?  So different.  No one boasts about their weaknesses.
Unless they learned to look at everything differently.