Being weak

"For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;
but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,
so that no man may boast before God.
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
so that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."
-- 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

"Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself!
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecuting, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."
--2 Corinthians 12:7-10

"Thus says the Lord, 'Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches;
but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understand and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,' declares the Lord."
--Jeremiah 9:23-24

"For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"
--1 Corinthians 4:7

Today was hard. As a part of our History of Ancient Israel we camped out last night on a beach (on the Dead Sea) at En Gedi, where the hike we took several weeks ago ended. Today the class took a fairly intense, 10 mile hike that climbed and went back down 2000 feet of elevation. That is, the class minus me. As of several days ago, an intermittent sharp pain in my hip that was diagnosed last semester as "piriformis syndrome" started flaring up again. Despite stretching it out as much as possible beforehand, I knew I wasn't going to be able make it more than a mile on the hike when it took me probably five minutes before I could stand up straight when trying to get out of my sleeping bag in the morning.

A little background to this story:
I've worked pretty hard this semester so far in trying to establish myself as the "IBEX stud". All the guys on my wing know about my pushup program, and I'm happy to encourage them in it, that is as long as they are doing less than me. I'm the guy who everyone "oohed" and "aahed" over when I carried the oversized backpack on our last backpacking trip. I'm the one who always tried to lift all the heavy stuff when moving a pile of junk on our IBEX workday last weekend, pretending that it wasn't a big deal. After all, isn't it great of me to serve others by taking the heavy load all the time?

Therefore, this hike was supposed to be a breeze for me. I was supposed to be the dude blazing up the trail, graciously dropping back every once in a while to encourage one of the slower hikers, or offer to carry somebody's water, since it was no problem for me. However, I believe the Lord had other plans for my day, such as staying back in camp, limping around like a gimp, taking a nap, and doing homework. I felt like pouting like I used to when my older brothers would get to do something and I couldn't because I wasn't old enough.

God, does that make sense? How in the world can you use me if I can't even walk right? My answer, of course, is in the above Scripture passages. God isn't impressed when I flex for Him. He is the one who gave me my usually healthy body. He can take it away. I could even now be seconds away from a stroke that leaves my body paralyzed for the rest of my life. God is in the business of putting His own glory on display, because He alone is truly glorious and deserves praise. When I try to steal some of this spotlight for myself, I am sinning against my eternal God. Rather, God has chosen the use the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised, the "things that are not" so that the world will see that their strength is from a some source other than themselves, namely God! Why else would you think that God would use David to kill Goliath (not Saul, the Israelites' giant), use Gideon to conquer the Midianites with 300 men (not 32,000), and ask Namaan to bathe in the dirty Jordan River to be cleansed (not the wholesome rivers of Damascus)?

God alone is the source of my strength, whether I recognize it or not. This doesn't mean I should begin starving myself or exposing myself to disease in order to "perfect power in weakness". (God already seems to do fine in making me weak when He deems necessary!) In fact, God has used the strong, wealthy, and wise to serve His purposes as well (consider for instance Abraham, Samson, Solomon, Daniel, Job, Joseph of Arimathea, to name a few off the top of my head). However, these men were only successful when the recognized that the strengths they had was given to them from above (or they goofed up when they didn't recognize this: i.e. Samson). Lord, help me to use what you have given me to Your glory, so that I may boast in Your strength through my weakness!