Weaknesses- Good or Bad?

Weaknesses are good.

Wait, what?! You've got to be kidding me, right?

Nope, not at all! I am being completely honest with you, weaknesses are good. And for me, that is a VERY comforting thought!

I really love the Transformed series we are doing at Harvest. Today's quiettime was on 2 Corinthians 12:9, and it talked about how God uses our weaknesses. The journal listed three promises about weaknesses, and as I read them, I realized that weaknesses are good! Here are the three promises:
1. "God's power is present in your weakness,"
2. "God works through weakness to accomplish His task,"
3. "God allows limitations to become blessings in disguise."
I really felt relief just flow through me. I am a major perfectionist, and I hate having weaknesses. I don't like it one bit. I want all of me to be perfect. But that's not what God wants. Sometimes I think we think God expects us to be perfect. He doesn't! Not at all! He knows we aren't, and that's how He shows his power! If there was no weakness in us, how would He show His strength? God needs us to be weak. He has no reason to work in our lives if we're perfect. For me, this puts a whole new meaning to the fact that God loves me the way I am. I don't have to change, I don't have to clean-up, I don't have to be perfect to follow Him! 
"I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well." (Psalm 139:14)

For most of my life, I have felt like God and everyone else expected perfection from me. I am a very self-conscious person because of it. Perhaps you can relate to that feeling. How wrong I am! I don't have to be perfect! I can embrace my weaknesses because God wants to use them and work through me! The devotional also brought up the fact that we are like jars of clay. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) We are breakable, and God knows it. We are a treasure to Him!

I hope this truth brings you comfort and joy as much as it did me. We as humans cannot be perfect, and God does not expect us to be. Embrace your weaknesses because that is how God will work!

"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." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)