It may well be that there is no better place to start my blogging life, than with this mind bending paradox, “When I am weak, I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Penned by that wacky out-there Jewish mystic Paul of Tarsus, two thousand years ago.
Here was a fella who knew all about the game of finding spiritual strength in absolute powerlessness.
Make no mistake, Paul’s urging is all about God Sufficiency (2 Cor 12:9), as against self-sufficiency, Spirit dependence not self-reliance.
As I say in my upcoming book; this makes no sense at all, if you’re still flying high, on top of the heap, doing the ‘winner takes all thing.’ God alone knows, I spent half a lifetime thrashing around in that soul-less space.
Falls must come before the rise, dark before the dawn.
Little did I know at the time, however, that in the spiritual life, falls must come before the rise, dark before the dawn. That’s just the way of things in the realm of the Spirit.
Paul and other mystics of his ilk, across time, place and culture, are dealing in this spiritual paradigm of bottom up spirituality that is rooted and grounded in humility.
For them the world is infused with the Spirit, where trying to be a self-reliant winner makes you an all time loser. Where in the end you’ve just got to lose before you can begin to win!
Who knows, it might just be that you know a little, or maybe even a lot about losing. If that be the case you might just be on the paradoxical road like Paul, of becoming an all-time winner. “When I am weak, I am strong.”