White supremacists have dominated the news cycles lately.
I’ve never really understood the concept of racial superiority.
When I read about how African slaves were treated in colonial America, how they were considered less than human, it makes me sick to my stomach. I wonder what series of events caused an entire culture to consider themselves superior to another based primarily on skin color. I’m sure there was never a single, seismic shift in thinking that suddenly caused the fair skinned to look upon those with darker skin and see them as animals. Maybe things like cultural isolation, lack of accurate information, massive amounts of insecurity, or a revisionist eye toward history over many centuries created the widespread callous blindness it must take to look at what is clearly another human being and see something akin to a trained pet, to be bought, used, and disposed of as one would any beast of burden.
Certainly the vast majority of the world now sees the lunacy of white supremacy, and yet some persist in this sadly perverse mindset, and what’s worse, attempt to merge this misanthropic worldview with Christianity.
The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
Certainly it’s possible that the media is magnifying the impact that these few, misguided souls could have on our culture, but perhaps they aren’t the real problem. Perhaps their wholehearted embrace of something so vile is simply a symptom of a more pressing and widespread issue within us all.
Weakness.
It presents in an impressive array of disorders, but always with the same destructive results. From our minds to our bodies to our very souls, humanity is poisoned by weakness. We are all of us needy creatures, and we often attempt to mask our weakness with our other more desirable traits, but it lurks in the shadows, always there, waiting for an opportune moment to destroy us. It almost seems that we were designed to fail. From the biological frailty of our flesh to the mental frailty of our vices, it seems that we can’t escape the inevitable victory of weakness.
Death comes for us all.
Sin bests the purest heart.
The human condition is defined, above all else, by weakness.
Yes, the Bible says this, but we already knew. Each of us is guilty of the shame of our ancestors, hiding our nakedness in the presence of God. All of us, at some point, become aware of our weakness in the presence of true Strength, and we are undone.
The Christian position is that this weakness has been overcome by Christ, and yet it seems that weakness survives our conversion. Even the best of Christians still die.
Why is it that sin still plagues the heart of the regenerate, and death doesn’t discriminate in favor of the faithful?
Perhaps because weakness is actually our ally once turned on its head.
When we see our weakness in the light of the cross, I think we see ourselves as we were meant to be seen.
I believe Jesus used the weakness of His human nature as a powerful tool to show us the possibilities available to each of us if we will only embrace that which we consider to be our mortal enemy.
Paul said that there was only one thing he boasted in:
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)
Weakness is the enemy of self-sufficiency.
Self-sufficiency is the enemy of Christians.
If I am sufficient, I do not need God.
But I do need God.
So I want weakness.
Only weakness eliminates any thought that we have earned the right to become children of God.
That right is a gift, as is the weakness that makes accepting it possible.
Weakness is the first gift.
A gift that our good Father knows better than to remove while we still need it.
So as long as I’m weak, I’ll keep thanking God for the reminder that I’m only ever complete when I completely depend on Him.
Adam desmond 