If there's anything we tend to despise, it's weakness. Strength, on the other hand, is regarded as praiseworthy. But the apostle Paul made a puzzling statement: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10).

How could he say that? He learned that when his own strength gave out and his personal resources of energy and wisdom were depleted, he had to rely completely on God's inexhaustible grace. When he did that, his experience was like that of a traveler in the desert, who tosses aside his bone-dry canteen because he has come to an oasis with an abundant supply of crystal-pure water.

Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, knew the secret of strength through weakness. Complimented once by a friend on the impact of the mission, Hudson answered, "It seemed to me that God looked over the whole world to find a man who was weak enough to do His work, and when He at last found me, He said, 'He is weak enough--he'll do.' All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them."

Have we learned the secret of abandoning our utterly inadequate self-sufficiency in order to draw on the resources of God's unlimited power?  — Vernon C. Grounds