When challenging circumstances reveal our weaknesses, it can be tempting to despair. But we must strive to stay strong. Sometimes our relationships with family and friends cause us great distress. To help us fight discouragement—especially in the face of hardship or sickness, Scripture helps us to face the battle of discouragement. It teaches us to view our present situation from God’s perspective. When we cry out to the Lord in prayer and remember His faithfulness, we are reminded of His clear promises. He is an Almighty God who is able to work all things for His glory and our good.
In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, we find Paul pleading with the Lord about removing something that had been troubling him for some time. "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
When we honestly recognize our weakness, it enables us to proclaim the sufficiency of God’s grace and boast in the strength of God alone. Men like David, Gideon, and Samson discovered (often through failure) that it was not their strength, but God's. We must never be sidetracked by our frailties. The Lord often chooses the weak and calls the least likely people to defend His Name. He just may use your present heartbreak, failed relationship or difficulty and pain to bring glory to His Name.
However, you must remember that your adversary is quick to encourage you to doubt the integrity of God’s promises. Your enemy likes to cast doubt upon the love of God for us. And he also likes to suggest to us that the way out of our crisis is to prove how strong and capable we are. This is a scheme of the adversary to make us independent and self-reliant by nature. What we need to do is become totally dependent on God. We must work to continue to place our total trust in God and His strength, so in our time of weakness - we can be made strong.
