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.
Paul had asked for something to be removed — some ongoing struggle he calls a thorn, never named exactly, which has made this verse resonate with almost anyone carrying an unresolved weakness of their own. The answer he got wasn't the removal he wanted. It was this instead: my grace is sufficient, my power is made perfect in weakness.
That's a strange kind of answer to a request. Not "you'll get stronger and this will stop being a problem," but the opposite — the weakness stays, and something else works through it anyway. Most self-help logic runs the other direction: fix the weak spot, then you'll be ready. This flips it.
If there's something about yourself you've always seen as disqualifying — too broken, too inconsistent, too far behind — this verse doesn't promise that thing will disappear. It suggests it might not need to.
If you've been waiting to get it together before you take faith seriously, it's worth asking whether that's actually the requirement.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.