For muscle to become stronger it first needs to be weakened, or at least that is the resultant feeling from exercise. The idea is that as the torn muscle structure repairs it does so with added strength. A gym instructor says, ‘Push through the pain and become stronger,’ just as you suspect you may not actually make it to the being stronger bit! My cyclist friends speak of miles in the legs which is about getting past the pain barrier and building muscle memory. In many sports we win by taking advantage of an opponent’s weakness or mistakes. On the track the advantage is measured in milliseconds and a runner can lose because she misplaced her step and fell out of optimum stride reaching for the tape.
Most of us are not elite athletes or muscle bound giants. Our weaknesses may not be repaired stronger or better. Battling for a huge part of his life with what he described as a thorn in the flesh, Paul the apostle concluded that God’s grace to live with, whatever the weakness was, outweighed the disadvantage it brought. Cold comfort if you are currently nursing a debilitating pain or managing yet another anxiety attack, I know! Yet this is a theme that many in life follow. For some the very things we call weaknesses, thorns in our flesh, can in certain circumstances become strengths, even advantages.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book titled David and Goliath. Taking the theme of these two opponents from the ancient Jewish writings Gladwell leads us to the idea that what we might see as disadvantage or weakness may not be so. Goliath was that big frightening muscle bound guy whose vice like grip you wouldn’t want to feel. Yet his size was his disadvantage, slow and un-wielding he couldn’t catch the young David. As David walked to meet this giant everyone was so sure he couldn’t overcome Goliath that they almost began building his coffin! They didn’t see that David was agile and unencumbered by concern about what he lacked. He wasn’t thinking he needed bigger muscles or special armour.
Some read in this approach of David a message, to egg us on, that here is a lesson in being focused on the task, not letting what he wasn’t dictating what he was- destined to win. Meet the challenge head on, face your fears, puff up your chest and look your opponent in the eye… Give me a break!
What about the single parent who can’t find the inner strength to even think about let alone face the challenge. What about that 63 year old who never had a chance to save a nest egg and now the pandemic is wiping out his last few years of productive paid work! Today I think of those men and women who cannot see how they will keep the house they spent years paying for or the young couple trapped in a tenancy with a landlord needing them out so that she can help her own family survive. These torn muscles may not come back stronger or be able to look the problem in the eye!
So what’s the answer Rob? David had a clear and obvious problem -Goliath. Paul did not actually have a thorn stuck in his side; his words are metaphorical about an ongoing set of problems. We don’t know if it was a person or an illness or the burden of sharing his faith. We do know it didn’t go away or make him stronger. Paul prayed with real tears for this genuine pain to be taken away but concluded that God’s presence, grace would sustain him and that in some mysterious way the power of God would shine through Paul’s journey with weakness. Read it in 2 Corinthians 12.
The recorded words of Jesus in the gospels challenges us to not walk by our neighbour in need. That same voice spoke of hunger and thirst, loneliness and nakedness, ill health and imprisonment as being opportunities for us to walk beside those who carry a thorn in the flesh – weakness or frailty. Then, perhaps as David turned the socially perceived disadvantage of his size to advantage maybe that single parent next door, the anxious widow up the road or the hard pressed families down the street can meet God’s sustaining grace from our helping hands!
Rob Wykes 