OPINION — “There is a certain way,” Milton says, “through weakness to the highest strength.” For four years I have struggled with my weakness, sometimes resenting it, always searching for the “strength” to endure it. When Milton says “the Apostle shows” the way, he is obviously referring to the Apostle Paul’s wisdom about handling weakness:
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 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 12:7-10 (ESV).
Like Milton, I am inspired by Paul’s testimony to believe there is “a way” to let God’s strength work through my weakness so that, “though feeble, I shall be sublimely strong, sightless and yet endowed with piercing sight.” But believing it is one thing; practicing it daily is another. So I constantly pray that the Lord will bolster my faith, enabling me to practice this principle even when my weakness is overwhelming. I do long for “the power of Christ to rest upon me.”
I love the hope God gives us that there will be a glorious day of “completion.” Paul told the Philippians he was confident “that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” Philippians 1:6 (NIV). There is a profound sense of incompletion in our lives. Dreams unfulfilled. Gifted lives cut short by accidents and violence. Christians beheaded by evil men. Grief caused by blindness, affliction, violence, disease and death.
But John assures us that in the new heaven and the new earth God will be with us and He will be our God — “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” Revelation 21:4 (NIV). So our Lord invites us to cry with Milton, “Through this infirmity I can be completed, perfected: in this darkness I can be filled with light.”
Today I pause to thank God for John Milton, whose testimony 350 years ago still inspires me to agree that “It matters not how weak I may be, so long as in my weakness that immortal and superior strength [of Christ] works more powerfully” in me. Glory!
