Survival of the Weak

Young David walked out onto the battlefield with only a sling and a few rocks he had gathered on the way. He was going to fight one that nobody else would fight. His Philistine opponent stood 9 feet tall, and he was very strong. Goliath could not believe his eyes when he saw David, a weak boy who had the audacity to think that he could take him down. Goliath laughed at David. He despised him making fun of him by calling him a dog and cursing him by his gods. This did not phase David. David must have thought, ‘You refer to your gods, let me tell you about mine.’ And he said to Goliath, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled.”

In this confrontation the odds makers would not have given David a chance; he was too young, too inexperienced, too unprepared, and too weak to win a fight with his overmatched opponent who was battle ready and battle proven. But we know better. With one stone from David’s sling God guided that projectile to the one spot on Goliath's forehead that dropped him like a ton of bricks. God gave the victory to the weak little boy whom he made strong because of his steadfast faith.

There was another man, similar to Goliath, who learned a valuable lesson about God’s strength. Saul, strong intellectually, strong religiously, strong in influence, intent on destroying the new Christian movement, and positive he could do it, was dropped to his knees by the One whom his compatriots had killed. Saul was on a seek and destroy mission to Damascus, but instead of accomplishing his goal of bringing harm to the followers of Christ he was converted becoming himself a follower of Jesus. The Apostle Paul, no longer Saul, was despised and hated by those who had once revered him as their leader. He became the hunted, the one persecuted, the one insulted, the one who suffered hardships, the one who was beaten, the one who was imprisoned, and unbelievably the one who eventually boasted about his weakness.

Christians we live in a wicked world. Many of our friends and our acquaintances are following the ways of the evil one. He is stronger than us. We cannot defeat him in our own power. If you are like me you are made aware of your weakness often. But Paul gives us hope in something God told him. God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So Paul learned to boast in the fact that humanly he was weak. He said that Christ’s power rested on him in his weakness. Paul said, “For Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Why is our weakness good? Because when we know we are over matched in a spiritual situation, Almighty God will give us his power to handle the conflict so that the victory will belong to him and he alone will be glorified. God always makes the weak strong so that he will receive the glory.