Strength in Weakness

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.

-2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

   When Gideon was leading the Israelites to battle the Midianites who had invaded their land, God looked at his army and said, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.'"  So God worked with Gideon to whittle an army of 32,000 down to 300 men, and those 300 men routed the Midian army.
   Now, that is a heartening story.  And Christians have the tradition of Gideon as a source of encouragement and strength.  We have Gideon himself as a symbol of strength, as a Judge through whom God delivered Israel from their oppression.
   However, the greater symbol Gideon presents for us is one of weakness.  Earlier in the story we find Gideon, the same man who will lead Israel in conquest over their enemies, squatting in a winepress so as to hide from the Midianites while he threshes some wheat.  God sends an angel to visit Gideon, and the angel says, "The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor."  Surely this is irony, and Gideon says as much.  He says to the angel, in essence, Yeah Right!
   Gideon does not much endear himself to us after this.  God next tells him to tear down the altar of Baal, but since Gideon is afraid he sneaks out and does it at night.  Then God brings all of Israel to him; they are assembling for war.  They assemble around this man who is the self-proclaimed least of his house, which is the least in the nation.  So what does Gideon do?  He asks God to give him a sign if God indeed will deliver Israel by his hand.  God obliges, Gideon witnesses the sign, and then...he asks for another.  God obliges again.
   It's hard to feel sorry for Gideon when his army is reduced to 300 men.  God has performed a half dozen miracles for Gideon by the time we find him on the edge of war with his tiny force.  And yet he is still afraid, still doubtful.  And what does God do?  He encourages Gideon.  "Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.  But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant.  And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp."  Gideon goes down, overhears the fright in the Midian camp, and the next day they begin to rout their enemies.
   If ever God's power was made perfect in a man's weakness, it was with Gideon.  In spite of his doubt, his fear, his lack of self-confidence - or rather, because of these things, God is powerful and victorious.  God does not require our strength to be strong in us.  He does not give us strengths so that we can accomplish what He wants for us.  I have no doubt that He gives us our strengths for a reason, and that we should make use of them, but even on our best day we will not accomplish what He can do.  There is comfort in this, and there is also frustration in it.  The frustration is for our Flesh, which wants to be the one to do it.  The comfort is for our Spirits, because we know that He is The One who Did It.
   There appears to be a balancing point between embracing our weakness (and thus embracing God's strength) and incubating doubt.  Gideon seems to refuse to take God on His word.  He so doubts that God will deliver Israel, especially by his hand, that he keeps asking for assurance.  Understand this: God deals in assurance as much as He deals in anything, but no proof will ever win over the hard heart of doubt.  Whatever his failings and doubts, this at least Gideon did: he believed God, finally.  For many of us who beat ourselves up for our weaknesses and despise our doubts, we too can probably say this much about ourselves--about some instance when we decided to believe on faith in the Lord--and feel that we too share in some of the good of Gideon.
   The way that God deals with Gideon's doubts is reassuring.  It is a picture of God's Grace.  That the Lord allows Gideon to go down and hear the Midianites fretting over Israel's army is, in this story, the greatest proof of His Grace.  He gives us what we don't deserve, even to excess.  He loves us so much that He holds our hands while we struggle to get where He's going.  And I think this is the important thing that Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9: that the Lord says, "My grace is sufficient for you."  So sufficient in fact that His power is made perfect in our weakness.  Even our weakness cannot hinder the power of God.