You Only Know It When You Go Through It

“For when I am weak, then I am strong.” — 2 Corinthians 12:10

It’s like I was given a new set of eyes after coming through cancer. I saw my mortality like I was seeing it for the first time. I truly knew I could die. Death had been disguised but was always in plain sight. Yet power is often at its best in weakness. As Paul confessed, “It is when I am weak that I am strong.” Today, I am more alert, more time-conscious, and far wiser about what really matters.

You only know certain truths by going through them and coming out on the other side. You can’t just know them by attending church, reading Scripture, or listening to others speak — even if you nod your head in agreement. Only when you are truly depleted of your own resources do you recognize the Larger Resource. Only when you come to the end of your ability to manage do you discover the True Manager. Powerlessness introduces you to All Power.

The first eleven chapters of Romans are filled with rich theology — righteousness, sin, justification, sanctification, the Trinity, and the sovereignty of God. But transformation is not theory. It is lived. You will fall into sin and then taste the joy of grace. You will lose your way and have to return like the prodigal. Only then do the words stop being words and start becoming your story.

We’ve memorized the playbook and built beautiful stadiums. But have we truly played the game? Since Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, we’ve often moved from being a movement of the powerless and marginalized to an institution of power and prestige. The danger is that faith becomes more about believing than becoming, more about learning than living.

That’s why Paul wrote to a highly sophisticated and diverse Roman audience — not just to teach them theology, but to move them toward transformation. From gifts in the church to governing justly, from lofty doctrines to loving both the weak and the strong, Paul’s mission was clear: truth must become life.

You don’t truly know the strength of grace until grace is all you have. You don’t truly know resurrection until something in you dies. And you don’t truly know God’s power until your own power runs out.

Reflection Questions
    1.    What hardship or weakness in your life taught you something you couldn’t have learned any other way?
    2.    Where might you be clinging to your own “manageability” instead of trusting the True Manager?
    3.    How could your theology move from head knowledge to lived reality this week?

Grace to you,
Cedric
Traditionalwriter@yahoo.com