About 15 years ago, I completed my Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. When I first began to attend classes, I did it more out of curiosity than anything else, but as I proceeded through the various belts, I began to realize that a black belt was indeed an attainable goal. One of its philosophies is that “True strength is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.”
Gandhi said that “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
Isaiah tells us that “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength,” and St. Paul says that “we can do anything through Christ, who strengthens us.”
When St. Paul spoke of the “thorn in his flesh,” he reported that Christ told him “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” He went on to say that “for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
We hear so much about the importance of strength as it relates to finance, to politics, to our personal life. We want a strong economy, government, marriage. Every January, we hear the phrase: “The state of the union is strong!” Indeed we would be worried if our president stood before congress and the nation and said “The state of our union is weak, and when it is weak, it is strong!”
In these final days of Lent, perhaps we must re-examine our own views of strength and weakness, “For [it is] the meek [who] shall inherit the earth.”
Charles Staples