Strength is Weakness and Weakness is Strength

 Saint Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

...because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

This verse seems to be a contradiction. How can one be strong when they are weak. Why would God give Paul a "thorn in the flesh" that would seem to make his work more difficult.  

    To illustrate why this is so,  I'm going to use two famous quarterbacks in the NFL: Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. When Tom Brady first auditioned for the NFL his statistics were not very good. The people at the combine noted that Tom was slow, didn't throw a good tight spiral, didn't look like he had ever been in a weight room, and didn't have a strong arm. By contrast, Aaron Rodgers got very good remarks at his first combine after college. On paper Aaron Rodgers is a much better quarterback than Tom Brady.  He is quick and can use his legs to get out of a jam.  He can really zip the ball and can throw it very far down the field if needed.  Yet it's Tom Brady who has seven Lombardi trophies Aaron he has one. Why is that?   I think the answer is that Tom Brady's weakness is his strength. He knows that he can't do it on his own and needs to rely on others on the team.  He works his hardest to improve those areas he is not good at, but in the end he knows that can carry him only so far.  He works hard to be the best team leader he can be both on the field and off the field.   Aaron Rodgers on the other hand does not do those things. He relies on his own capabilities (his speed, his throwing ability, his agility) to carry his team on the field.  While this has worked for him at times in the past, it has become his downfall as of late.  For example, this last spring he decided to sit training camp out and not spend time working with his teammates.  He clearly thinks he doesn't have to train with them and doesn't appreciate what his team does for him.  He has become puffed up and arrogant, to the detriment of his team (shown in their 38-3 pounding by the New Orleans Saints on 9/12/21).

So you might say Tom Brady's weakness is his strength and Aaron Rodgers' strength is his weakness.

So also it is with us Christians and our relationship to Jesus Christ. When we recognize our weakness and that we are incapable doing it ourselves, we see that we need to rely on him more and less on our own abilities.  Our weakness becomes our strength.  God gives us these thorns for a reason.  As with Paul, to remind us that we are weak and to prevent us, like Paul, from becoming "puffed up".  He doesn't want our "strength" to take our focus off the need for HIS strength.

EARN IT!!

     In life there are two kinds of earning.  One where we work a job, save our money and pay for what we want/need.  The other is where we are given what we did not ask for and use our lives to pay our thanks back.  Christians often mistakenly focus on the first and think that they must DO something to EARN their salvation, when it is really the second type of earning God wants us focused on.      

    In the gospel of John we have the following story of Jesus being confronted with a person caught in the act of adultery in John chapter 8:

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

        The last few words uttered to this woman may seem harsh to those who don't understand the full context of the problem.   Was Jesus telling her to shape up or else next time I might not be here to save you??   Was it Jesus chastising her after everyone else is gone?  Was he saying her salvation hinged on her living a good life?

       Not at all.  It is Jesus who will be paying for those sins in a few days on the cross and he knows there is literally nothing this woman (or any of us for that matter) can do to repay God. 

       To better understand this let me use the following video clip from the WW2 movie,  "Saving Private Ryan".  For those who may have not seen this movie, Tom Hanks character is sent with a team of soldiers to find and send home a Private Ryan whose family has lost 3 brothers in other battles and Private Ryan is the sole surviving son.  In the end, Tom Hanks character is shot in a battle to protect a bridge from the Nazi's and his dying words to Private Ryan (Matt Daman) are:  "EARN THIS!"

The scene cuts to an old Private Ryan standing in a cemetery where his friend is buried

          In this scene the man talks to the grave-stone telling his friend he hadn't forgotten what he asked him to do and that he thought about him every day of his life.  He then asks for his wife to assure him he was a "good man".  He spent his life "earning" the gift given to him and paid for by others sent to save him.  

         Jesus was sent to save sinners and give us eternal life with him.   The gift is already paid for and given to us without our asking for it.  All Jesus asks is for us use our lives in thankfulness and to "earn it".  We have all been given much by God and we should let our lives reflect that great gift as well.  We do not live good lives to earn our salvation, but we live good lives in honor, love and respect for all God has done for us to give us salvation.

Just like Private Ryan.

Don't get a Cat!

 

My advice to anyone looking to get a cat is this: Don’t do it!

A cat will take over your house and your life.

To start with, your favorite seat will become their seat. You will get up to get something from the fridge only to find your seat taken and have them look up you like they have done nothing wrong.  "Were you sitting here?" they seem to say and you will find yourself re-locating to a new seat.

You will never eat another meal in peace as you will be constantly hounded to share your food with them.   They will hear from across the house you opening a can of "anything" to come see what they might scavenge from you. They will assume that any food prep in the kitchen must be for them and not for you.  They will bop their heads into your calves with much enthusiasm and affection as they can muster to increase their odds of having some morsel of food dropped from your hand to their waiting mouths.  They will sit next to you on the couch and look up with big watery sad eyes.  If you try to look away they will tap you on the arm or shoulder as if to say, "Hey! I am here!  Please give me some!"

Throughout the day, you will be beaconed to the door to let them out only to be called upon a few moments later to let them back in.   Ignoring them is fruitless.   They will scratch at windows or bang nearby blinds over and over again as if to say, "I can do this all day! I have nothing I would rather do than drive you insane!"

Their hair will be found everywhere. It will collect on your floors , your beds , your shirts and your chairs. It will fill up your vacuum cleaner almost as fast as your can replace the bag.   Invest in lots of lint-rollers and have them spread throughout the house as you will need them. You will be embarrassed when friends ask you,  "Is that sweater cashmere?" only to say, "No. I have a cat!" 

They will interrupt your sleep with cat-calls to rouse your from your bed to find that they had brought a “pipe cleaner animal” to your door as an offering of value as if to say “Look what I brought you!” They will jump on your bed in the middle of the night like a 3 year old child when the rare occurrence of lightning strikes in the night.  You may try to console them but that was not the purpose of them waking you.  The reason they woke you was to put YOU on alert for the next strike and they will be upset that you are not as scared as they are!

Speaking of displeasure, they will show their feeling to in a variety of ways: from hissing to scratching to even pooping.   Yes, that's right! Pooping. Leave them alone for an extended weekend with plenty of food and water and you may have to endure a random "gift" left on your bathroom floor as if to say, "This is what you get for leaving me all alone!"  

Your workspace will become their favorite sleeping spot. Whether it’s your desk or kitchen table, they will make going to work so hard to do. They will entice you too look away from your spreadsheets and emails to provide them with neck rubs and chin scratches.  For some reason they will determine your upper corner of your laptop screen is the perfect place to rub their chin on.  Who cares if it moves your screen up and down, you're not really working anyway... right?  Sometimes they will mistake your computer cursor for a fly and try desperately to kill it and you may have to explain later to your boss how the value in field D26 got put into F34.

Couches and chairs will become places for them to sharpen their claws no matter how many more “approved sharpening tools” you buy them.  But why would they?  A piece of leather works so much better than polyester carpeting wrapped around a piece of wood.  They do have their standards to keep up you know!

Speaking of standards, they will test your patience with your choices of food you buy them. Each brand or variety will be consumed with differing amounts of disdain or appreciation. You will find yourself oddly joyful when they consume your purchase with vigor and delight. But don't get too joyful for just when you think you have their food selection figured out they will test you yet again as they stand over their food and look up at with a look of "What?  This again?"

As they grow older their health will deteriorate and you will spend 100's if not 1000's of dollars on them and endure scratches and clawing as you try desperately to give them their medicine.  In the end you will agonize what to do about their last days with you. You’ll spend hours caressing them and cheering them on in hope their health will return. You will do this, all the while knowing it’s not likely to change the outcome.  You will forget all of the above and wish for just one more day with them.

So my advice to you is if you don’t want to feel a hole in your heart when they go and like a piece of you is gone with them then I advise you to not get a cat.  It will be the worst decision you will ever make. 

 

Approaching Zero

 
    We often hear politicians and various social advocates say lofty things like:

"One more death from ______ is one too many!" 

    You can fill in the blank with any number of reasons. 

• Gun violence
• Drunk driving
• Drug overdoses
• Bullying
• Terrorism
• Gang violence
• Sports injury
• Stupidity
• The list goes on and on....

   Of course no one wants to see a loved one killed or die ahead of their time, but is ZERO deaths due to drunk driving, guns, violence, terrorism, over-doses or just plain stupidity achievable?   If you think it is, then what rights and privileges are you willing to give up to achieve that goal?

    In Calculus you learn the concept of "approaching a value".    Some functions by their very essence can never reach or attain a desired value.   They can come very very very close, but never ever quite there.   The simplest of equations to illustrate this is :

                                                           Y = 1/X

   When graphed you see the following

As you can see the function NEVER touches the X-axis where Y=0.  It comes very very close but is never quite equal to 0.  In calculus we would say

"The function Y=1/X approaches zero as X goes to infinity"

Does this mean we can't solve for Y=0?   Not really.   What we can do is accept a value "CLOSE TO ZERO" as good enough.    In the above graph we might accept a value of 0.1 as close enough to zero and say that when X = 10 we reach a value near zero.

It's not perfect but good enough.

What does this have to do with our world and what can we learn from it?   Well for one thing is that perfection is never attainable but something close enough will often do.   Today we live in a world that is constantly striving to be "perfect" and never seem to be finding it.   Many politicians today are selling a notion that perfection is just around the corner if we just give up some of our rights as citizens.   We can end all gun violence if we register all of our guns or get ride of certain kinds of guns.   We can prevent all DUI deaths if we just give up our rights to not be breathalyzed.   We can have no more hate if we just give up our rights to speak what we want to say.

Of course none of these requests will ever deliver on their promises because we can never reach perfection, but that won't stop politicians and law enforcement from pushing the next law they want passed. 

Our founding fathers put the words "In order to form a more perfect union" in our Constitution.  They were realists.  They knew that anything created by fallible human beings itself would be fallible and less than perfect.   They did not think their system was "perfect" but instead "more perfect" or to put it in mathematical language:  "approaching perfection".   They were admitting they did not have it all right from the start and that we would never get it 100% right either.  Like the function 1/X, you need to accept an imperfect output to find a solution to the problem.

In the TV show "Blue Bloods",  Tom Selleck's character often quotes the following:

"The enemy of good is not evil!  The real enemy of good is perfect!"

It means that if we only accept perfection, we will never achieve the good we want.  Like the function of Y=1/X, if you don't accept 0.1 as "close enough to zero" you will never find X=10.  So also, if you wait for and accept only perfection you will never be able to find a solution to the problems facing you.

In our country our Bill Of Rights help us define that boundary of less than perfect.   Take for example, DUI arrests.  We know DUI car deaths are never going to be stopped 100%.  As long as their are cars and alcohol we will have a bad mixture of the two.   While no one wants to see a loved one lost in such a way,  we know that we want our own rights to not be forced to do something against our bodies or have our bodily fluids used to testify against us (5th amendment right).  There must be a balance and we must accept a solution that is close but not perfect.  Of course the rights of the drunk person might allow some to go free and possibly offend again, but without the Bill of Rights and the 4th and 5th amendments, there would be no boundary to stop a government from invading your privacy and forcing you to bend to their will.  The protection of your rights make it necessary that possibly some undeserving drunk goes free. 

The 4th and 5th amendments stand as our "good enough" (but no farther) limits. 

Does this mean we just stop striving?  No.  But we do need to be will to accept it can never be perfect.  The good will be trampled by those promising and expecting perfection.