"For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12 :10)

Physically, I’m a fairly weak person – being a weakling hasn’t hindered me massively in life, besides getting into a few fights with bottle tops, and having to go to the office next door to get them to open my jar of marmite in the morning… the only time it did cause a bit of a problem was when I was growing up and was having those all important play fights with my brother and sister, both of which are bigger and stronger than me. We’d have our battles to prove who was the strongest… They became rather like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when Arthur is fighting the Black Knight who was immortalised by the words “it’s a mere flesh wound” despite both his arms and legs being chopped off…

Now, we may not have gone to the lengths of lopping various limbs off, but but we were not going to admit to one another that that Chinese burn hurt, or that we’d lost all feeling in our arms after the arm wrestle… that would admit weakness… but most importantly defeat!

But I often find that a similar thing can happen in times of emotional ups and downs and emotional frailty… When things in life go a bit wrong, perhaps work’s not going too well, a relationship hasn’t turned out as planned, someone’s hurt your feelings, you’re not very well… or perhaps you can’t quite put your finger on what the problem is, but you’re just not very happy at the moment. But whatever it is, it’s safe to say that the ‘joy of the Lord certainly isn’t your strength’. And yet, despite the fact that you’re surrounded by a load of Christians who’d probably be all too happy to listen to you and pray with you, when you’re asked “how are you” you almost go on to autopilot and say “yeah yeah, everythings fine”.

I felt a bit like that a few months ago – I was just having a pretty rubbish week. One of my friends came over and started chatting away to me, and, of course, I put on the brave face. And he asked me how I was, and of course autopilot kicked in unfortunately at the same time as the tears did too, so then you’ve got that strange mixture of the tears rolling down the face which rather belie the words coming out of your mouth “yeah! Everything’s really great! Busy day, y’know!”.

And he simply said, “Liz, it’s ok to not be ok.”

And that simple sentence really struck me – it’s ok to not be ok. I think we can put so much energy into fighting that feeling of just not feeling ok – because perhaps we find that feeling of vulnerability unnerving, or that as a Christian we should always be joyful, and if you don’t then you’ve failed a little. The problem is, we then end up spending so long fighting simply not feeling ok that we don’t have any energy left to deal with the actual issue and being healed from it – we worry about the symptom and not the cause.

But God never promised us that we would always be just fine – that we wouldn’t face times of worry and upset and hardship. And to be quite honest, if we didn’t ever encounter such times, we’d be pretty 2-dimensional really. It’s coming through those times of struggle that lends an extra richness to our personality and consequently to our relationships with one another… I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those relationships where it just seems to stay on a rather superficial level – every time you see one another you have the same old small talk. No matter how hard you seem to try, there’s nothing you can connect with, no hook to latch on to… and then suddenly something seems to click – they’ve had a bad day at work perhaps… whatever it is they show just a little sign of needing you, just someone to talk to and suddenly it’s like in a computer game where you find the secret key onto the next level…there’s a new depth to your relationship – a new understanding.

Even Jesus had times when he wasn’t ok – Matthew 26: 36 says this.

"Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethesemane... and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.""

After he has prayed to God this happens:

"Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Couldn't you keep watch with me for one hour?""

He was “sorrowful and troubled” and alongside praying about this to God, he also admitted it to his close friends. Even Jesus needed the companionship of his disciples at this, one of the most human moments of his life – notice how troubled he becomes when he finds his disciples are sleeping…

It’s this passage that made me feel the reality of Jesus for the first time … I encountered the humanity of Jesus – this new depth of beautiful personality which proved to me that he really does know what it's like to be human – it’s not just empty sympathy that we're reading on the pages of the Bible... it's total understanding.

We see a glimpse of weakness there – he wants this "cup to be taken from him" (Matthew 26: 39) – he doesn’t want to face the suffering that’s to come if he doesn’t have to… and yet, it is when Jesus is at his weakest, at his most frail on the cross, when his body is broken and dying, that he is at his most powerful – he will defeat death, and reconcile all of mankind to one body with God.

In the same way, during the times when we’re feeling our weakest and our most broken, God doesn’t stop using us… God’s not taken us off the football pitch of life and put us on the bench, substituting us with a stronger player, even though it can feel like that sometimes… Quite the reverse! God doesn’t need us to be perfect to use us – all stages of life are valid when we’re walking with God.

Our God is one who doesn’t abandon us in our times of frailty, he wants us to come to him and to depend on him and his strength to get us through it.  “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want, He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul, he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23: 1-3). Perhaps we feel overlooked by people around us in our weakness, but God is with us, and can use us however we’re feeling.

I was very struck when John Stott came to speak here a few months ago – I knew that he was an elderly man, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how frail he was. Even though he had a walking stick, Nicky still had to really help him up on to the stage. I’m ashamed to say that at that point, in my cockiness of youth, I almost wasn’t expecting very much from him, and yet he began to speak with such authority such truth and powerful wisdom, that it was like the weakened bones had simply fallen away and had been replaced with rods of iron – because he was speaking in the strength of God.

John Stott knew that admitting he was physically frail didn’t detract from the powerful way that God has used him and is still using him today. And in the same way, we mustn’t let our weaknesses, whether they’re physical or emotional, trick us into thinking that we’re useless for God’s kingdom. We also mustn’t let our pride, and our fear of appearing less than we should be stop us from dealing with the problems that life throws at us. It’s ok to not be ok. We don’t need to do everything in our own strength any more… we have a powerful God we can depend on who knows what it is to struggle, and who can create his perfect order out of our chaos.

"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no-one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men will stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

(Isaiah 40: 28-31)