September 6, 2013
Weakness or Fragility?
By Robbie Andreasen
Science Instructor
I remember as a child playing a game called British Bulldogs. It started out in the dark, in a treed
valley. One person would stand in the middle of the valley, and everyone else would try to
navigate the valley in the dark without getting tagged. Anyone tagged became a new bulldog and
attempted to tag more people. The winner of the game is the one who never got tagged.
Inevitably, ankles got sprained, ribs got bruised from over-aggressive “tagging”, and trees even
broke some noses. Adults did not seem to mind because such experiences were supposed to
“toughen us up” in order to prepare us for real life. Those who experienced the injuries could then
boast about the suffering they endured.
Today we don’t allow our children to play such potentially dangerous games. Why have such
activities been removed? The value moderns place on ease, safety, and close monitoring of their
children has grown in recent years. A new belief seems to have sprouted in our culture that says
no one should ever suffer any harm, and if they do, then it must be somebody else’s fault (not a
normal part of living). While being as safe as possible sounds wise, the elimination of all risk
does not build resilient children, but fragile ones. Though weakness and fragility often are used as
synonyms, I will argue that there is a very important difference.
What is the difference between being fragile and being weak? Take for example a jiu-jitsu fighter.
He might be tough, strong, and ready to compete, but when he loses a match or when his girlfriend
walks all over him, he falls apart emotionally. In contrast, your aging aunt might be the opposite:
physically fragile but emotionally robust. Something fragile breaks when conditions vary; fragile
objects succumb to outside forces (a dropped porcelain vase will shatter into a thousand pieces).
Weakness, on the other hand, is the opposite of strength, the inability to accomplish a task.
Weakness entails a certain deficiency: weak minds can’t solve problems, weak muscles can’t lift
heavy objects, weak hearts can’t resist temptation or face a daunting foe.
While both weakness and fragility seem equally negative in our American culture where
individual strength, autonomy, and self-reliance are highly valued, the Bible brings another reality
to bear.
“For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we
were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that
we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God
who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Paul suffered tremendously during his life. Paul did not seek out this hardship and suffering. In
fact, he prayed to God for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed (2 Cor. 12:7-8). God responded,
“‘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 weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
God used the suffering and trials in Paul’s life to cause his faith and trust in God to grow.
Consider all the suffering, hardship, and trial Paul encountered, and you’ll understand that Paul
was not fragile. Instead, he experienced God carrying him through trials, which developed a
resiliency that enabled him to be content with weakness.
Such resiliency develops only by passing through the hardships, not avoiding them. The
difference between weakness and fragility is that weakness is an opportunity for God’s strength to
be demonstrated and for us to learn to walk by faith. Contrarily, fragility comes about via the
studied avoidance of risk, danger, hardship, and suffering.
Notice also that the kind of weakness the Bible is talking about is self-weakness. While Paul did
experience strength, it was not his own strength. His strength came from God. If he had not faced
adversity, he would never have experienced the power of God within him.
As a father I have witnessed this in my own son, Zachary. When he was only a couple of years
old, every scrape, bump, and bruise were exceedingly painful (because they were, in fact, the most
painful things of his life up until then). As a father, I comforted him while instilling in him a
wider reality, “It’s really not that bad.” To us as adults these scrapes are nothing because we have
experienced much greater trials. A skinned knee is no comparison to watching a loved one go
through chemotherapy, recover from surgery, or suffer a painful death.
As Christians we are promised suffering this side of heaven. The problem isn’t the games we play
or the safety precautions we take. We can’t solve the problem of how to deal with suffering by
simply making dodge ball a Geneva requirement or by making our lives as pain-free as possible.
The solution is our posture. In jiu-jitsu, your opponent is always trying to break down your
posture in order to put himself into a better position to attack you. If you can maintain posture,
you can ride out the attacks.
Likewise for us as Christians, our posture of faith in a sovereign God enables us to grow in our
weakness instead of shattering to pieces. Our posture must be one of humble trust in our strong
God as he uses broken bones, disease, stressful relationships, and even death itself to teach us
dependence. Practically, this means we need to pray without ceasing; we need to be on our knees
before the Father. In the end, may we like the Apostle Paul boast in our weakness because it is
then that God’s strength is manifest. We live in a broken world filled with enemies, the flesh, and
the devil, but we are Children of the Most High God. He rules over our trials and difficulties by
empowering us.
We are going to face suffering and trials in this life. Learning how to deal with suffering is not
accomplished through the games we play or don’t play or by overvaluing ease and lack of
suffering. Seeking trials can cultivate a heart that boasts in its own strength. Overvaluing ease can
create a fragile soul. The solution is not to play more dodge ball or to throw prudence to the wind
but to cultivate eyes of faith that see the unseen. Living the Christian life means having our
weakness exposed during times of trial so that we can learn to trust God and rely on his strength.
We live in a fallen world with enemies around us, so suffering should be seen as a normal part of
life this side of heaven. To become resilient we need to accept that God rules over our difficulties,
and in humble reliance on him, walk through the trial. Our hearts need to value the growth of our
eternal souls more than the comfort of our temporary bodies.