^ Now the sun is strong, and I get my strength for arm and limb from him : but for its strength my heart travels to God and to home ; for he who is near Christ is near the hearth-fire.^
^ You will allow if weakness was ever pardonable, it has been so in my case ; not that I apologize for it — I love it, and I glory in it. If ever there lived a bold-hearted man, St. Paul was one, and he said, " I glory in my infirmities." Oh yes ! there is a certain holy virtuous weakness, without which something would be lacking to the perfect harmony of man's nature.^
^ It is not the weakness which we admire, but the strength which is exercised by weakness and triumphs over it ; it is not the cloud, but the sun which shines through the cloud ; it is not the veil, but the Divine beauty which shows through the veil ; it is not the infirmities, but the grace which is able to subdue these very infirmities to its own quality and complexion.'
^ What are your prison walls ? Broken health, failing limbs, while you would choose to be all movement for God ? Aching head, weary nerves, while it is your duty to be surrounded with toil and bustle ? A sphere of service curiously unlike what yon would have chosen, in view of your knowledge of your own capacities or weakness, yet in which you are to-day, and out of which your Lord does not — at least to-day — lead you ? Home service, when you would prefer to be a missionary pioneer ? A parish, when you would like to evangelize a province ? A sick-
1 R, W. Barbour, Thoughts, 115.
' Ernest Renan, iu Brother and Sister, 295. » S. Cox.
304 POWER IN WEAKNESS
room to fill with patient service, when you would like to organize a hospital? Study, when you would like out-door preaching? Out-door preaching, when you would choose study ? A life of entirely secular conditions, when you would choose the holy ministry ? Limited abilities, difficulty of speech, when you would like to be able, eloquent, for Christ ? Poverty, when your heart aches for riches, that you may spend for Him ? Eiches, when you would fain have done, for His sake, with their solemn responsibilities, and be free in the restful simplicity of humbler life ? Surroundings marred by the mistakes and perhaps injustice of others, while you long for co-operation and intelligent, healthy sympathy ?
You know, in all these things, what it is to " take pleasure." They are delightful, not in themselves, but from this point of view. The restraint, the negative, has become blessed to you, for it is your Lord's chosen opportunity for saying to you, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Your former fret and worry under circumstances are gone ; for circumstances are literally as full as they can hold of occasions for the acceptance and working of His power. You would rather be weak, and the subject of His power, than be strong. You would rather be at uncongenial work, and have it filled with Him, than be at your most darling occupation, of your own mere will. In the mistakes, in the wrong-doings of man you yet see and welcome the unmistaking love and wisdom of your Lord. Your deep, calm, silent desire is that He should be glorified in you. And as this is, manifestly, very often best done " in your infirmities," you can, you do, in Him, take pleasure in them. For infirmities of every scale, for little as for great, for great as for little, by a blessed inclusion. His grace is sufficient.^'
2. It is an application of general truth to the case in hand if we translate as in A.V. (with some MSS.) : " My strength is made perfect in [thy] weakness." It is enough, the Lord tells Paul, that he has this heavenly strength unceasingly bestowed upon him ; the weakness which he has found so hard to bear — that distressing malady which humbled him and took his vigour away — is but the foil to it: it serves to magnify it, and to set it off; with that Paul should be content.
3. " My strength is made perfect " — that is, of course, perfect in its manifestation or operations, for it is perfect in itself already. " My strength is made perfect in weakness." It works in and
* H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 66.
2 COR. xii. 9 305
through man's weakness. God works with broken reeds. If a man imagines himself to be an iron pillar, God can do nothing '^ with or by him. All the self-conceit and confidence have to be taken out of him first. He has to be brought low before the Father can use him for His purposes. The lowlands hold the water, and, if only the sluice is open, the gravitation of His grace does all the rest and carries the flood into the depths of the lowly heart.
^ I fancy if we each had to single out some one person as exhibiting in his or her life the power of Divine Grace, we should not generally select those who stand highest in the world's esteem for intellect or power of will, but we should take one whose transparent simplicity and modesty seemed to allow the light of Christ to shine through him in all its purity, so that none could be in his company without feeling that they had been brought nearer to Christ Himself. These are the living witnesses of the unseen realities ; one such humble Christian man or woman V exercises a power for good of which they are themselves altogether [ unconscious, and which will be fully understood only in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men.^