At her church in Port Harcourt, Ibiene was the woman people called when things went wrong. She taught chemistry at a secondary school in Rumuokoro, and she led the women’s prayer meeting every Tuesday evening. When a sister lost a baby, Ibiene was at the hospital before the husband had finished parking. When a family was facing eviction, Ibiene organised the contributions. Younger women called her “Mummy Strong.” She laughed at the name, but she liked it.
Then, in the space of four months, her own life came apart. Her husband lost his job when the oil services company he worked for cut its staff by half. Around the same time, the heavy bleeding she had been ignoring for a year grew much worse. The gynaecologist found large fibroids and recommended surgery. The estimate was one million eight hundred thousand naira. They had savings of less than a quarter of that.
Ibiene told nobody. She kept teaching. She kept leading the Tuesday meetings, standing at the front to pray for other people’s breakthroughs while she was dizzy and grey with anaemia. When the women asked how she was, she said, “God is faithful.” It was true. It was also a way of closing the door.
One Wednesday morning she collapsed in the school laboratory in front of an SS2 class. A student ran for the principal. At the hospital they gave her two pints of blood. Her husband, frightened, called the women’s leader from the corridor and told her everything.
Within ten days the women’s fellowship had raised most of the money. Some gave large amounts. Many gave small ones. A widow who sold pepper in the market brought five thousand naira in old notes tied in a handkerchief. The surgery went well.
Six weeks later Ibiene stood up at the Sunday thanksgiving service to give her testimony. She spoke about the diagnosis and the collapse and the successful operation. Then she lifted her hands and said, “God paid my hospital bill! Glory to God!” The church shouted and danced. She sat down.
She told me afterwards that she had not been able to say what had actually happened. “If I had said the women paid it,” she said, “everyone would know that Mummy Strong needed help. It felt like confessing that my faith had failed.”
Her testimony was true. God had provided. But it had left out the people He used, and it had hidden her weakness behind a story of strength. Paul would have told it differently.
The apostle who would not pretend
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is the most personal thing he wrote, and much of it concerns weakness. A group of teachers had arrived in Corinth who presented themselves impressively. They had polished speech, letters of commendation and confident stories of spiritual experience. Paul ironically calls them “the very chiefest apostles” (2 Corinthians 12:11). By comparison Paul looked unimpressive. His critics said his letters were weighty but his bodily presence was weak (2 Corinthians 10:10).
The Corinthians wanted an apostle who looked strong. Paul’s response was to boast, but to boast in the most unexpected things. After listing beatings, shipwrecks, hunger and danger, he adds this:
Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.
“The care of all the churches.” Beyond all the outward hardship, Paul carried a daily inward weight: anxiety for the people he loved. “Who is weak, and I am not weak?” He does not stand above the weak and dispense strength. He feels their weakness with them. And then: “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.”
That is a remarkable sentence from the most influential missionary in the history of the church. Paul refused to build his credibility on an appearance of invincibility. And that refusal leaves very little room for the demand, so common in our churches, that useful believers must always look strong.
Pressed out of measure
At the very beginning of the same letter, Paul tells the Corinthians about something that had happened to him in the province of Asia:
For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us ; Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
Read the language slowly. “Pressed out of measure.” The phrase speaks of being weighed down beyond what a person can bear. “Above strength.” Beyond his capacity. “Insomuch that we despaired even of life.” Paul does not tell us exactly what happened. It may have been severe persecution, a life-threatening illness, or both. But he tells us how it felt. He reached the end of his strength and thought he was going to die.
Paul did not have to tell them this. He could have reported the deliverance and skipped the despair. Instead he chose to say, “we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble.” He wanted them to know how low he had been.
Then he explains what God was doing in it: “we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” The experience stripped Paul of every remaining confidence in his own resources. When there was nothing left in him, he discovered the God who raises the dead. Self-reliance died in Asia, and something better replaced it.
And look at the three tenses of deliverance in verse 10: God “delivered us,” “doth deliver,” and “we trust that he will yet deliver us.” Past, present and future. A man who has been carried once learns to expect to be carried again.
Then comes the verse that answers Ibiene’s dilemma: “Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.” The word translated helping together describes people working jointly, cooperating in a task. The Corinthians’ prayers were part of how God delivered Paul. And the result Paul wants is thanksgiving from “many persons,” because the gift came “by the means of many persons.” God was the deliverer. The many were the means. Both belong in the testimony.
I want to pause on Paul’s despair, because some believers have been taught that a Spirit-filled Christian should never feel it. Paul felt it. If you are in that place now, if you have reached the point where you have begun to despair of life itself, please do not carry it alone. Paul told the church. You must tell someone too: a pastor, a trusted friend, a doctor. If you are thinking of ending your life, go today to the nearest hospital emergency department or call emergency services. Exhaustion and despair of this depth are often signs of depression or other illness that can be treated, and getting that help is part of how God delivers.
The thorn and the answer
Later in the letter, Paul describes an extraordinary spiritual experience, being “caught up to the third heaven,” and then tells what followed. “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure” (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Nobody knows what the thorn was. Sincere believers have suggested an eye disease, recurring illness, a speech difficulty, or a persistent opponent who harassed his ministry. The word buffet means to strike with the fist, and it suggests something repeated and painful. Paul calls it “the messenger of Satan,” and yet he also says it was “given” to keep him from pride. Satan meant it for harm. God set limits on it and used it for good.
What Paul did next matters greatly: “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me” (2 Corinthians 12:8). He prayed. He prayed earnestly. He prayed three times, the way Jesus prayed three times in Gethsemane. Paul did not pretend the thorn was pleasant, and he did not passively accept it without asking God to remove it. Asking for deliverance is right. Scripture encourages it.
Then came the answer: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The answer was not removal. It was sufficiency. God did not take away the thorn. He gave Paul enough grace to carry it, and He explained why: “my strength is made perfect in weakness.” The word perfect means brought to completion, reaching its full expression. God’s power shows most clearly where human power has run out.
Paul’s response is breathtaking: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” The word translated rest upon is related to the word for a tent or tabernacle. Paul pictures the power of Christ pitching its tent over him, the way the glory of God once rested over the tabernacle in the wilderness. His weakness became the place where Christ’s power dwelt.
“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
PunchlineWeakness is not the opposite of usefulness in God’s kingdom. It is often the very place where the power of Christ pitches its tent.
This passage has sometimes been misused, so a few guard-rails are needed. It does not teach that every illness is a thorn God wants us to keep, or that we should stop praying for healing. Paul prayed for removal, and he saw many people healed through his ministry. God still heals. Nor does it teach that weakness is good in itself, as if we should seek out suffering or neglect our health. Paul’s point is narrower and more liberating: when weakness comes and remains, it does not disqualify you. God’s grace is sufficient for it, and His power can be seen through it.
Comfort that came with a face
How does the sufficient grace of God actually reach an exhausted person? Sometimes it comes directly, in prayer, through the Scriptures or by the inward witness of the Spirit. But again and again in Paul’s letters it comes through people.
Later in 2 Corinthians, Paul describes another low point:
For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus; And not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you, when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me; so that I rejoiced the more.
“Our flesh had no rest... without were fightings, within were fears.” Paul admits to fear. The great apostle was frightened and restless. And then: “Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.”
Notice the shape of that sentence. God comforted Paul. And God comforted Paul by the coming of Titus. The comfort of God arrived with a face, a familiar voice and good news from Corinth. Paul does not feel any need to choose between thanking God and thanking Titus. God is the source. Titus was the means.
Luke records a similar moment near the end of Acts. Paul was being taken to Rome as a prisoner, after a terrible shipwreck. As he approached the city, believers from Rome walked out along the road to meet him. “Whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage” (Acts 28:15). The sight of their faces gave him courage. Paul did not regard that as a lesser kind of strength.
And in his last letter, written from a Roman prison, Paul remembered one friend with special gratitude:
The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: But, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me . The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
“He oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.” Onesiphorus searched Rome until he found Paul, and he kept coming. He was not embarrassed by the apostle’s chains. That is one of the great gifts a helper can give: to see someone at their weakest and not be ashamed of them. And it is one of the great humilities for the helped: to let themselves be seen in their chains.
NuggetIbiene had spent years being an Onesiphorus to other people. What she found almost impossible was letting someone be an Onesiphorus to her.
Fellowship in affliction
The fullest picture of this comes in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which is partly a thank-you letter for a gift they had sent him in prison. Paul first speaks of his contentment: “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11). Then comes the famous line: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
Many believers quote that verse as though it were a declaration of self-sufficiency. Look at what Paul writes immediately after it:
Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity. Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
“Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction.” The word communicate comes from the same family as fellowship. The Philippians had shared in his affliction. They had stepped into it with him. And the gift they sent through Epaphroditus was part of how Christ strengthened him. Philippians 4:13 and 4:14 belong together. Christ strengthened Paul, and one of the ways He did it was through a church in Macedonia that kept sending help “once and again.”
Paul is careful about how he receives the gift. “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.” He is not grasping for money. But neither does he wave the gift away to protect his image. He honours it in the highest possible terms: “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.” The language comes from the Old Testament offerings. Their gift to a weak and imprisoned apostle was worship, received by God Himself.
Think about what that means. When the widow from the pepper market brought five thousand naira tied in a handkerchief, she was offering a sacrifice to God. To erase her from the story is to hide an act of worship.
And then the promise: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” This verse is often claimed in isolation. In context, Paul says it to people who had given generously to meet his need. The God who supplied Paul through them would supply them in turn. The circle of provision runs through the body of Christ, and God stands at its centre.
Telling the whole testimony
All of this suggests a better way to speak about God’s help in weakness.
A testimony can go wrong in two directions. One erases God. “My friends paid the bill. The doctors were good. We were lucky.” That leaves out the One who moved the friends and gave the doctors skill. The other erases the people. “God did it all,” said in a way that hides every human hand involved. That can sound more spiritual, but it may hide our weakness and rob God’s people of the thanks they are due. It also teaches the congregation that real faith does not need help, which leaves the next exhausted sister even more ashamed to ask.
Paul’s pattern holds both together. “God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” “The gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons.” God is the source of help. People are often the means. A full testimony names both, and gives thanks for both.
This has implications for leaders especially. Some pastors and ministers believe they must never be seen to struggle, because their people need them to be strong. But a leader who hides every weakness teaches his people to do the same. A leader who can say, as Paul did, “we were pressed out of measure, above strength,” gives his congregation permission to be honest. Admitting exhaustion, taking a period of rest, seeing a doctor or counsellor, or asking the church to pray for you by name: none of these undermines your ministry. They may strengthen it.
It also has implications for how we treat those who are struggling. A church culture that celebrates only the triumphant and the self-sufficient will drive weak people into hiding. The prophet said of the Messiah, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench” (Isaiah 42:3). Jesus does not snap the damaged reed or blow out the flickering wick. His people should not either.
Strength for the faint
There is one more passage to hold onto when strength seems exhausted. Isaiah wrote to a people in exile who felt that God had forgotten them:
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD , the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Begin with God. “The everlasting God... fainteth not, neither is weary.” His strength never runs out. Then look at what He does with it: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” The people who qualify for this promise are the faint and the powerless. You do not need to arrive strong.
Then a sobering line: “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.” The strongest people in any society, the young, the fit and the energetic, will reach their limits too. Nobody is exempt. Mummy Strong will eventually collapse in a laboratory.
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” The word renew carries the sense of exchanging, putting on fresh strength in place of the strength that is spent. And look at the order of the promise: mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint. We might have expected the list to build from walking to flying. Isaiah moves the other way. Sometimes God gives soaring moments. But in long seasons of weakness, the miracle may be that you keep walking and do not faint. That is no small grace.
Waiting on the Lord in an exhausted season also involves practical faithfulness. Rest when you can. Eat properly. Keep your medical appointments and take prescribed treatment. If your mood has been low for weeks, if you cannot sleep or have lost interest in things you once enjoyed, tell your doctor. Counselling, medication where appropriate, and honest friendships are among the ways God renews the strength of His people. Grace is sufficient, and grace often comes to us in very ordinary forms.
PunchlineAbout a year after her surgery, Ibiene asked her pastor if she could give her testimony again. He was puzzled, but he agreed.
She stood at the front of the church on a Sunday morning, holding a sheet of paper. “Last year I told you that God paid my hospital bill,” she said. “That was true. But I did not tell you how He paid it. I was too proud.” Then she told them everything: the job loss, the bleeding she had hidden, the months of leading prayer meetings while she could barely stand, the collapse in front of her students, and the fear she had been too ashamed to admit.
Then she read from her sheet of paper. She did not name every giver, because many had asked to remain anonymous. But she thanked the women’s fellowship by name. She thanked the doctor who reduced his fee. She thanked the colleague who covered her classes for six weeks. And she said, “There is a mama who sells pepper in the market. She brought five thousand naira in a handkerchief. Mama, I know you are here today. That handkerchief was the hand of God.”
She told me the church was quieter than the first time. Several women were crying. Afterwards, three different women came to her privately and said they were struggling and had been afraid to tell anyone. Two of them were leaders. The Tuesday prayer meeting changed after that. It became a place where women could say, “I am not managing,” and be prayed for, and be helped.
The younger women still call her Mummy Strong. She has stopped minding. “They think it means I never needed help,” she said. “Now I tell them it means I learned where my strength comes from, and how many hands God uses to carry it.”
Perhaps your strength is exhausted. You have been pressed out of measure, above strength. You have prayed for the thorn to go and it has stayed. Hear the word Paul heard: My grace is sufficient for thee. Then let that grace reach you through the people God sends, and when the time comes to tell the story, tell it whole. Give thanks to God, and give thanks for the many persons by whose means He helped you.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Have you ever felt that admitting weakness would mean admitting your faith had failed? Where did that idea come from?
- How do 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 and 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 change the way you think about strength in ministry and service?
- Who has been a Titus or an Onesiphorus to you? Have you thanked them, and thanked God for them?
- Read Philippians 4:13-14 together. How does the gift of the Philippians shape your understanding of “I can do all things through Christ”?
- When you give a testimony of God’s help, do you tend to erase God, or erase the people He used? What would a whole testimony look like?
This Week
This week, write a “whole testimony” of a time God helped you in weakness. Include honestly how weak you were, what God did, and the specific people He used. Then send a short message of thanks to at least one of those people, telling them that God used them. If you are in a season of exhaustion now, tell one trusted believer exactly how you are, and ask them to pray for you by name, as Paul asked the Corinthians to help together by prayer.
A Prayer
Lord, You know that my strength is exhausted, and that I have often tried to hide it. Thank You that Your grace is sufficient for me and that Your strength is made perfect in weakness. Let the power of Christ rest upon me. I confess my pride in wanting to appear strong, and my reluctance to receive help from Your people. Teach me to receive comfort through the people You send, to thank them honestly and to thank You above all. Renew my strength as I wait on You, and if I cannot fly or run, help me to walk and not faint. Make me, in my turn, a comfort to those who are cast down. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.