Why You Should be Thankful for Weakness

by Rebecca Kiser

If your family is anything like mine, you go around the table at Thanksgiving dinner and everyone tells something they are thankful for. People express their gratitude for things like family, their job, their health, or if you’re my brother, the food. But what you’re unlikely to hear is anyone say they’re thankful for the bad times they had this year. The times they were struggling and the times they doubted they were going to make it through. The times they were weak.

It’s easy for us to be thankful when things are good, when we make it to the mountain tops. But you’d be hard pressed to find someone who wants to give thanks for the valleys.

While the mountain tops are beautiful times for us, they are not where we grow. 

From my own experiences, I see that every time God did amazing work in my heart it was during a hard time. I tend to get a little bit cocky on the mountain tops. At first, I see God’s hand in the situation and am thankful to Him for it, but I quickly adopt a, “I got this God,” attitude and begin drifting away from Him to do my own thing. When things are going good, it doesn’t always occur to me that I still need God. I’m likely to disregard God’s guidance and rules because everything is going well.

But in the valleys, God becomes my lifeline. It’s in my vulnerability that God gets real work done in my heart. It’s when my sadness, confusion, anger, and stress drive me into my bible and I become dependent on Him.

You see, when God created us, we weren’t meant to just be friends with Him; we were designed to be completely reliant on Him both physically and emotionally. When the fall corrupted our nature, pride took over and we decided we could handle things ourselves. That mentality doesn’t work out for us though, because everything about us was designed to need Him. So it’s not until we realize we need Him and submit ourselves to Him completely that God starts to work in our hearts.

Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” It’s important to note the second part of this verse: “according to his power that is at work within us.” God can’t do immeasurably more with your life if you don’t let him into your heart. And weakness tends to make us do that.

If you open yourself to God, trusting His will and letting Him steer your life, weakness becomes an advantage. 

I am more thankful for the times in my life that I struggled than I am for the times when I didn’t, because it was during my weakness that God changed me.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10  “So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses. So that the power of Christ can work through me… For when I am weak, then I am strong.”