Happy to be sick?

I was able to preach at first service this morning though I felt pretty weak throughout.  I was not strong enough to preach at second service.  One of our very smart sound and AV guys was able to video record my first sermon and so he played it at second service while I went home.  Honestly, it does not make me happy to feel so weak and to not be able to do the work I love.  My attitude stands in stark contrast to the apostle Paul's attitude which he expresses in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.  (I quoted the entire text in yesterday's post so you can scroll down to read it if you want.) 

After he understands that God sent the "thorn in the flesh" for his good (that he might not be conceited by the revelations given to him) and after he hears Jesus' word to him that his power is made perfect or brought to fulfillment in Paul's weakness he says this most amazing thing: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses."  Then in v. 10 he says (I am quoting the NIV which I think captures the sentiment better than the ESV), "For the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in calamities."  Paul gladly boasts of his sickness and delights in it.  He does not boast of his ability to teach the Scriptures.  He does not boast of all the churches he has planted.  He does not boast of writing a third of the NT.  He does not boast of his obvious intellect.  He boasts about being sick and insulted and experiencing all manner of hardship and difficulty.  He boasts about everything that accentuates his human limits and weaknesses and inability.  This is hard to comprehend and honestly, not the attitude which I have towards the debilitating weakness that chemo-therapy is giving to me.  My family can testify that I am not boasting gladly of my sickness, nor am I delighting in it.

It is a cliche in Christian circles to say that God wants us to give thanks in difficult circumstances but he does not expect us to give thanks for difficult circumstances.  Usually 1 Thessalonians 5:18a is quoted: "give thanks in all circumstances."  I don't think that Paul would agree with this cliche.  He would agree that Christians should always be grateful.  However, there is no question but that he is happy to be sick, grateful for the sickness, for the hardships which include hunger, thirst, sleepless nights, hard work, shipwreck, being on the road much of the time and not at home, danger on his journeys from the normal hazards of travel, no heat in winter, etc (see 2 Corinthians 6:4ff and 11:22ff for a complete list), he is happy for the insults, for the persecutions and for the calamities.  Either he is crazy or he understands something that I do not understand and I'm pretty sure that most of us comfort loving American Christians do not understand.

The reason Paul is happy to be sick is because he knows that the power of Christ only rests on people who are weak and who know they are weak.  All humans are weak in relation to doing anything good as God defines good.  Jesus himself says, "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).  The problem is that most of us, myself being the chief culprit, do not know that we are weak and helpless.  We think that because we can talk or act that we are strong.  So God sends sickness, hardship, insults, persecutions, calamities, etc. to show us, we really are "jars of clay" and that any good that we do is not us but him.  He has to make us weak so that it is clear to us and to all that whatever good is done is God's doing not man's doing.

In Paul's case, when we see all the churches which were begun by his ministry, when we see that 1/3 of the NT was written by him, when we see the enormous impact he had on world history but then we realize the spent years in prisons, that he was physically disabled and as he himself admits, physically unimpressive in person and not a great speaker we are forced to recognize: only God could have done this.  In addition, when we see the enormous amount of suffering which he endured (Read 2 Corinthians 11:22-33) and yet he remained faithful to Christ and to the commission given to him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, we are forced to recognize that only God could have done this.  The power of Christ rested on Paul for both work and for endurance because he was so weak in so many ways.

So for me the issue is simply this: what do I want more--the power of Christ to rest upon me for doing true good and for endurance or not to be sick and weak anymore?  Which I want will be evident by whether or not I gladly boast of the chemo induced sickness, whether or not I delight in it.  In writing this I cannot honestly say I want to be sick so I can be truly strong.  So would you pray for me that God would enable me to see the infinite superiority of his power resting on me instead of not being sick so that I might be able to join Paul in boasting more gladly in my weakness.