Strong Weakness

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8–10).

My dad was diagnosed with “farmer’s lung” about five years ago. Of the six little peanuts sown into this world by Floyd L. King, Lonnie was the third to ripen with lung disease. It progressed slowly for years, then the orange handle was thrust from tortoise to hare. The first time I watched him take a breathing treatment I had to look away. I was a sickly kid. I was small. I was weak. I went to the doctor all the time. I was asthmatic. Dad was always healthy. Dad was always big. Dad was always strong. Dad never went to the doctor. Dad had a set of lungs. I know this because he frequently used those lungs to wake me to “move pipe” (irrigation pipe), singing “O What a Beautiful Morning.” I was not entertained then. I am thankful now.

It’s true that most every little boy thinks that their dad is big and strong, but I never grew out of this. Through junior high some folks told me I’d get taller like my dad. False prophets. Dad was six foot two. Mom never broke five. I fell in-between. Dad’s shoulders were broad and his arms were darkly tanned from hours of hard work in the sun. My skin grew darker, but I neither grew taller nor broader. And so I never grew up. My dad remained big and strong. I never suffered any disillusion about taking my dad.

Until I saw him taking that first treatment. That hit hard. At first. But then he would speak and act, and I saw not weakness, but multiplied strength. The voice grew soft and the body frail, but this only amplified the glory of his strength. Embraced weakness—that was the source of my dad’s true might. This Sampson had lost his hair long ago, but God gave him new eyes to see His glory in Christ. That glory both humbled my dad and lifted him up. His body was big, but his soul was gentle, and his strength was rooted not in his strong body, but his gentle soul. He was meek before the Lord. Humility was his glory. My father decreased. The Lord increased. As there was more death to his body, there was more resurrection in his soul. 

“Unless a [peanut] falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Dad died with Christ. He rose to newness of life. He was not alone. By faith, he clung to the vine. He bore much fruit. Suffering sent his roots deeper into Christ. His soul bloomed. He was ripe for harvest. Not because he was weak, but because he was strong.

In one of his classic tales, George MacDonald has this paradoxical take, “…it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.”

My dad never really grew weak. He grew stronger. This was not because my dad was strong. It was because he knew he was weak. As another departed saint put it, “Weakness is the way.”