Only One Who Has Failed Can Find a New Way to Win

2 Corinthians 12:9

but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

A good while ago a good friend who is also a pastor texted me to say, “I’m more convinced than ever that God works through our weakness more than our strength.” I found myself searching for that text message as a reminder because I’m feeling kind of weak. I’ve had a hard year personally with several challenges in business and with death and illness in my family. I feel overcommitted and not up to many of the challenges I’m facing. I usually rely on an almost pathological supply of intuition and confidence to navigate the twists in my life, but the world just seems too filled with pain and uncertainty and adversity for me to feel my way in the darkness.

Yet in this year my prayer life has grown stronger. It’s a cliché I’ve tried my best to avoid, but leaning into your weaknesses can be a powerful tool for growth and dependence on God. What else do we have but God’s grace? My ego wants my life to be perfect and safe and powerful and envy inspiring. The reality is the exact opposite. Even when things are going well, pretending that I had much of a role to play in my successes is borderline delusional.

Weakness reminds us that we are not perfect, but we are more than our failure. It forces us to find a way forward back to God through humility. Our human limitations beg for us to cry out to God.

James 4:6

But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

When things are going well—when I feel strong—it is so tempting to become confident in my own talents and abilities. I close off myself from the realization that I am utterly dependent on God in every breath. I close off my heart from experiencing God’s grace and power. Somehow, it’s easier to pray, “thy will be done,” in the moments when you feel you have nothing left, all is lost and life is meaningless.

The flip-side of this existential crisis is a greater ability for empathy and compassion. We can better relate to those who struggle when we’ve been there ourselves. God may give us ideas and paths out of our problems, but God also expects us to share those paths with others whenever we can. Pride often prevents us from admitting our problems to others in ways that can heal each other. If everything always went well, we’d probably never change anything up. We’d never look to each other for help and enrich each other’s lives. We’d never innovate emotionally. You don’t need to change things when you’re winning all the time.

Only one who has failed can find a new way to win.

Winning shuts us off as humans. We can all think of someone who has been personally successful and somehow unable to understand how others can struggle. If you can’t think of any examples, please peruse Twitter or heaven forbid, LinkedIn. If you still can’t find any examples, search your own heart because one of the worst sins of our capitalist culture is believing in the idea that we are, “self-made.” It is inescapable that we are made in God’s image and when we believe we are self-made, it’s clear who we truly worship.

The shelves of your local bookstore—if you still have one—are filled with self-help books and practical how-to guides to show you your path to success. Our hands have ten separate fingers to point and wriggle at a poor single mother. Our national politics seem dominated by distaste for immigrants who have few other options but to risk their lives in dangerous border crossings for a better chance for their family. College debt relief is a scam. Affirmative action is unnecessary. Lack of affordable housing didn’t cause homelessness; it was drugs and laziness. Welfare queens. Inner cities. Blame the other for their problems because to do otherwise would be to admit that our successes were equally undeserved. We become our own golden calf by believing the self-made myth.

Failure and weakness should spur us toward empathy and humility. It doesn’t always. Sometimes it takes a lot of failure and a lot of weakness to grab our attention. It’s possible to grab us in a way that tips us the wrong direction, which is why empathy is so important. We must catch each other when we fall. I believe the problem of suffering is the best argument an atheist has. Why does God allow so much suffering all around us? (Why suffering and not evil? Those of you who know me well know have no problem with evil.)

One of the most attractive parts of Christianity for me is that we worship a God who allows suffering but gets right down in the muck to suffer with us. God refuses to be aloof or removed from suffering. Our human response to pain is to grasp at more security, more esteem and more power. Christ’s crucifixion uses weakness as the ultimate way to defeat power. Christ’s death and resurrection showed that the only real power Rome or anyone else has over our weakness is meaningless. You’re not self-made, you’re made by God for a purpose and pattern. That pattern is shown to us through Christ’s life. The real power is nothing self-made, the real power is self-sacrifice. The real power is not dominance and control but love and selflessness. Power doesn’t come from vanity and self-promotion but from humility and service.

Only one who has failed can find a new way to win.

Our moments of weakness and failure force us into an imitation of Christ when our own arrogance would’ve prevented such discipleship.