Have you ever wondered about the Bible’s reliability? How true are the stories it tells? One thing that makes the Bible so believable is the way it portrays its major characters. Very rarely do you run across anyone in the pages of Scripture who has it all together. Sarah was consumed with jealousy, Rachel and Leah couldn’t get along, Miriam chafed under Moses’ leadership, Abraham lied because he was afraid, David committed adultery and then murder, and Solomon had an insatiable appetite for women. If the Bible were a puff piece, its characters would be far more heroic. Instead, it displays their weaknesses honestly, revealing the kind of raw material God had to work with.
And work with it he did. As Rick Warren points out,
“The great missionary Hudson Taylor said, ‘All God’s giants were weak people.’ Moses’ weakness was his temper. It caused him to murder an Egyptian, strike the rock he was supposed to speak to, and break the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Yet God transformed Moses into ‘the humblest man on earth.’
“Gideon’s weakness was low self-esteem and deep insecurities, but God transformed him into a ‘mighty man of valor.’ Abraham’s weakness was fear. Not once, but twice, he claimed his wife was his sister to protect himself. But God transformed Abraham into ‘the father of those who have faith.’ Impulsive, weak-willed Peter became ‘a rock,’ the adulterer David became ‘a man after my own heart,’ and John, one of the arrogant ‘Sons of Thunder,’ became the ‘Apostle of Love.’”1
What about you? What are your greatest weaknesses? Ask God for the grace to face them honestly. But don’t let them weigh you down. No amount of weakness can keep you from becoming the person God wants you to be if you will keep following him, trusting him to transform you as you do.
- Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 275–76.
