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. 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.
I don't like these verses much. I am not a fan of weakness and especially have a hard time with the idea of celebrating my weaknesses. This is probably why I could easily see myself jumping in with the people of the Tower of Babel story; ready to show off our great accomplishments. But like God's response to Babel, His desire is exactly what Paul tells us; to make His power shown in our weaknesses. Whether we want to admit them or not, our weaknesses are an important part of who we are.
This brings me to my latest race. In my over-confidence I made the decision to sign up for a recent 100 miler after racing the KC Marathon the week before. And to make it even harder, I ran it still planning to be at church the next morning. Bad decision.
And I learned about weakness and failure. Even as I began the race, I calculated how long it would take to finish. I knew I could run this race because last year I finished in under 23 hours and in 6th place, but could I get done in time to get some sleep before church? And how soon would I feel the tired legs from a hard marathon the week before?
In every ultramarathon I feel the miles earlier than I want to. Usually somewhere in the 20's of miles I begin to feel tired and start worrying that I won't make it all the way. What I've learned is that the exhaustion doesn't continue at the same rate after that initial feeling. So my legs often don't feel that much worse after 40 miles than they do after 20. But this time was different. Right about the 8 mile mark, I began to feel that familiar tired feeling. But it wasn't until around the 41 mile mark that I started to feel like this may not work. I was noticing during the 10 mile stretch to the turnaround station that I was slowing down more and more. My legs were tired, I was already sick of the singular trail surrounded by trees, and the hours were going too fast. At this rate I was not only going to miss my goal of 20 hours, but I may not even be able to reach my last year's mark; which means I'm not getting much sleep at all before church. I hate to fail. I had never had a DNF (Did Not Finish) before, and I was proud of that fact. Even in my first 100 miler when I pulled my quad muscle 40 miles in, I had still finished the race. Not this time. At the 51 aid station, though my crew tried to talk me out of it, I was done.
What do I learn from this failure? First, people are generous in failure. We often think we'll be ridiculed and mocked when we fail, but people are incredibly gracious when we're down. I was almost frustrated by the kind words I heard from so many after this DNF because I didn't want to belittle the failure I'd chosen. But so many people were encouraging, I couldn't help but feel better.
Second, I was forced to embrace this important fact, "...my power is made perfect in weakness.” My weakness is real and necessary. I am prone to the pride that I don't deserve, and my failure is a reminder that I am made for God's strength, not my own. In that story of the Tower of Babel God doesn't scatter the people because He's threatened by their accomplishments. It's because they've forgotten their purpose. We are created to need our God and to live in relationship with Him. As His created beings leaned more on their own abilities, they forgot their weakness; and forgot their God.
So fail boldly. It's frustrating. It's disappointing. And it's necessary.
See you at the next starting line... and maybe at the finish line too.
Photo credit: Mile 90 Photography.
