I’m frustrated by my weaknesses just like everybody else—I suppose. We don’t like people to look at our weaknesses, let alone analyze or talk about them. They’re like thorns in the flesh, things we’d like to hide, the objects of our constant shame, the hurdles ever standing in our way and if we could; we’d suppress them. For those of us who use Photoshop, we wish there was a tool we could use in real life that functions just like it. It’s (almost) unbelievable and almost too good to be true. It’s a world where you’re totally in control, where you have the ability to erase what you’d like to hide, crop out the unnecessary, resize, adjust and erase the blemishes, bring out the beauty and the ‘perfect’ as it seems good to you.

But life doesn’t offer one of those tools. You have to live with those weaknesses. You have to accept those glitches in your system, even though you hate them. Those things that you’re constantly aware of; those dark areas that make you short of perfection. You are ever restrained by those weaknesses; you’re set into a box and you feel like they’re fences all around you, obstructing your way to freedom.

They make things harder, the sweat on your brow is caused by them and unfortunately whatever your endeavors are, your reach (perfection) always exceeds your grasp. Let it be a natural disability, let it be an undesirable character that always clings to you, let it be a tough situation, let it be anything else; we’re weak.

But God, the great artist, has not mistakenly left these weaknesses around. The dark spots were painted purposefully and carefully and they ultimately contribute to the quality and the beauty of the painting. Our Lord, the great designer and the great architect, has not planned a single pointless area— there’s a kind of mess and dirt that sets itself up in any construction site and it doesn’t mean that it’s purposeless. The great director has orchestrated series of events—hopeless situations, events of despair and pain included. But the screenplay was gracefully written in his wisdom; all these scenes were thoughtfully chosen for there’s no otiose lines in his play and God knows they’re not superfluous.

‘The pulley’; one of the famous poems by George Herbert, gives us an insight into God’s merciful dealings with us. God—in the poem— pours on man riches, beauty, wisdom, honor and pleasure but he intentionally withholds his rest in order that “weariness may toss him to His breast”. These weaknesses—especially those that won’t go away— are always pulling us down to the ground to our knees, in a position of prayer and trust and leaning on God. Those weaknesses glorify the creator in that he’s glorified as the helper and magnified in our eyes as the one who lifts the needy from the ash heap, as our supreme helper, and as the lifter of our heads.

These weaknesses come to open our eyes to our helplessness, blindness, our limits and constraints, our state of need for assistance… God will be the crutches when you need to walk, your lamp in utter darkness, your eyes because of your blindness, your counselor and helper when you don’t know which way to go…

There is something humbling when you realize that true blessedness is in your weakness. One of the first things Christ said, as a matter of fact, is that the weak (the poor in Spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the persecuted, the hungry and thirsty) are those who’re really blessed for God opposes the proud (those who think they don’t need God, those who think they can make it by themselves, those who believe in themselves…) but he gives grace to the humble. (Jas4:6)

God knows of our prideful condition, but in his divine pedagogy; He breaks both the arrows and bows of the mighty, He brings down the mighty from his horse, He destroys his fortress and raises Himself as the mighty fortress and the place of refuge for the weak and the stumbling which he—after that—clothes with strength; that is—note this— His strength.