Eric Poulin

Posts Tagged ‘weakness’

I love learning about the gospel. Its amazing!

Millions of people all around the world draw strength from the words of the Saviour and prophets and apostles through the scriptures.

Have you ever noticed how one passage of scripture seems to impact certain people and maybe not you… and certain scriptures really hit home to you, but maybe not as much as others? Truly the scriptures speak personally to us.

However, there are some scriptures which seems to universally resonate. Either they teach doctrine so unmistakable and clearly, or they touch on something that affects the whole human condition. I find it very interesting how we are all able to recognize brilliance, even if we don’t quite understand it fully. Let me explain by focusing on a single scripture that I’d like to discuss today – a scripture that was a topic of discussion in our High Priest Group a few months ago.

Ether 12:27 (this one is so universally applicable, its a scripture mastery)

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that  humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Such a beautiful concept, such wisdom. But what does it really mean? I mean, the idea that Christ can turn my weaknesses into strength is AMAZING.

I want that!

But seeing as I’m very practical and pragmatic… I want to understand the mechanism… At least I want to know how to go about “doing” that.

For years, since I was a child actually, I’ve read that scripture and loved it. I have plenty of weaknesses that need overcoming and the promise of turning my weaknesses into strengths – well, that’s fantastic! But I’ve always struggled with the how? How exactly do I turn a weakness into a strength? But I never explored the idea far enough to come to a good answer – not until recently.

Before I get into the details of this particular scripture, let me preface it by explaining how this whole thing came up… because I think it may be helpful for you to both discover deeper understanding of the gospel, and help with a method to gain that understanding.

Every 3 months or so, I get the opportunity to teach a lesson in High Priests. Beginning about 2 years ago – whenever I have that chance, I decided to use the opportunity to explore some of these “hard questions” I’ve had. The truth of the matter is, I’m a relatively young man in the company of much more experienced and wise men than me in this group… so I decided that I would try to tap into their collective knowledge and life experiences. I’m comfortable enough with myself to not need to pretend to know everything and ask questions to increase my knowledge. So, when I teach, I allow myself to explore some of these questions that I’ve had for ages, and verbalize them in the form of a question to the group. Very often it stimulates excellent conversation and I always come away having learned much from the process. In this way, you truly become a lesson facilitator instead of the instructor. You might try that when you are teaching a lesson too… let the students teach you! Often the reason you’re stumped on a particular question is because you always approach it the same way – the change in perspective from other class members is often just what the doctor ordered to resolve my long-standing questions.

Well – in this particular example – I was wondering about the specifics of how to turn my weaknesses into strengths. So – if I recall, the lesson was this past June on a 4th Sunday, which meant it was from 2 recent General Conference talks. Somehow the topic of weaknesses came up, and since I have plenty of weaknesses and haven’t managed to overcome many of them, I thought – “Aha! An opportunity to tap into the combined knowledge of the High Priests!” So I planned in advance to bring up the topic, which was already somehow part of the lesson. The scripture from Ether came up, which I’ll repeat once again just for clarity:

12 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that  humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
Ether 12:27

So I explained to the High Priests, the following…

“So – the Lord gives us weakness (singular) that we may be humble. I get that our individual major weaknesses can humble us. I mean, our weaknesses are bigger than us and overcoming them is difficult. And since self-improvement is what the gospel is all about… making us better individuals – more Godlike — essentially that’s what repentance is – trying to change our evil natures to something Godlike. Got it. So I get that God gives us our weaknesses to make us humble. Thanks for that God. I’m humble.

The challenge comes in the next part of the scripture. We often read it, and agree because it sounds like a wise platitude, but I’m not sure we really understand what it means… or rather I don’t feel like I properly grasp the practical applications. Lets assume I let my weakness humble me and I have faith… check.

So now, somehow the Lord will “make weak things become strong” unto me. That’s the part I’ve always had a hard time understanding. How does that work? Lets take a few examples:

How does an individual who is addicted to pornography have that weakness turned into a strength?

How does an individual with a habit of swearing or addicted to substance abuse have that turned into a strength?

Keep in mind that these words are written to the converted who have faith. So faithful members of the church who are trying to repent, but perhaps struggling with addiction (because I think all long-term sin is like an addiction – we are trying to repent but we keep falling back to old habits). How does a humble member using faith but struggling with an addiction (even a small one.. like watching too much TV instead of making productive use of their time) have their weakness turned into a strength? What is the practical method here that I can go and apply?

As often happens when I ask such a question, everyone pauses for a moment and the wheels start turning.

Some of us posited that the weakness that God gave us was mortality – the weakness of the flesh. I wasn’t sure it was that simple, but it did make sense. Our flesh is weak, no doubt, and we often succumb to physical addictions and desires that get us into trouble… but I was more interested in the next part… how does becoming humble from our weakness and having faith in Christ enable Christ to “Make weak things strong?”

We discussed that fact that people with a history of sin (weakness) can help teach other not to do that… but that is a strength to *others* not necessarily to them.

Our High Priests Class was not long enough to get to the bottom of it all and we left with the conversation still going. Bro Walcer and I kept the conversation going in the church parking lot and got Robin and Sis Walcer in on it. We weren’t convinced that the whole having weakness is good so you can help others idea was not right. After all, its way better to never have a weakness right?

Well, I got home still thinking about it, and wasn’t willing to give up yet. Then I remembered once someone from the Oshawa ward wrote me a letter while I was serving a mission with a question that I was easily able to answer… There’s something about being the Lord’s service full-time that allows the spirit to just flow more readily…  Then I thought – “Hey my parents are missionaries – and my Dad is kind-of part of our High Priest Group still – let me ask him!”

So I did. He gave, what was for me, the most insightful answer that really answered my long-lived question. Maybe he just knows how to speak to me so I understand, but his response was awesome. With his permission, I’m sharing his response, that perhaps it will be a blessing to you too.

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Hi Eric,

You will have to excuse my quoting a few well known sayings, that I’m sure you already know, but bear repeating as there is great knowledge and wisdom embedded in them.

The first one is a quote from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin 1881-1955 who was a Jesuit priest (there is a lot of wisdom also out of the church such as C.S. Lewis also a great philosopher and thinker) “We are not Human beings having a spiritual experience, we are Spiritual beings having a Human experience.”

So what does this have to do with being humble and experiencing weakness? It is always good to remember that we are eternal beings and going through stages, this earthly sphere for example. Here we gain this physical body that is in the likeness of our Father in Heaven. It is also needful to remember that everything on this earth was first created spiritually. So this spirit thing is THE most important factor that exists for us.

The weakness part depends on our free agency. Yes the mortal state exposes us to the temptations, appetites and passions (all gifts from HF) and to Satan’s power while on this earth and the test for us is to go through life with the knowledge that although we will not be perfect and will succumb to appetites that are not in keeping with how our HF would have us behave and grow, we are created and sent here to gain a body to be perfected ultimately as our HF is.

So this leads me to the next axiom, that part of our test and going through the pains of weakness and repentance is that we “can bring our human-ness or bodies and passions under subjugation of our spirit….not the other way around!”

Also, we are created that we might experience JOY both here and through the eternities. So our choices…agency (which is NOT free) allows us the opportunity to become better, like our HF with our resurrected bodies.

Now you mention becoming humble as quoted in Ether. […and this was the mental leap for me…]  Humble = teachable  If we say we are humble we probably aren’t! But being repentant leads one naturally to being teachable and thus we expose ourselves to the light of Christ if we aren’t Christians or to the HG if we are confirmed members of the church. Following this path leads from a state of weakness to a position of power over sin and thus we become stronger!

Then we can bear testimonies to others and reinforce our learning from a position of strength. Although this transition does involve the light of Christ or the HG in our lives it doesn’t remove our agency in any way. So, different degrees of glory in the eternities await us according to our choices here on earth.

It’s kind of like the allegory of the footprints in the sand thing where we are unaware of divine help as good choices are made to repent or improve our condition. I think of millions who do family history research, who are really unaware that the spirit of Elijah is being fulfilled in our day.

Don’t know if this fits with your thinking or gives any further light on the subject, but as I see it this earthly experience is glorious, not really a place of weakness but a place of transition to perfection made possible by our HF great plan for us to BECOME like him. We all agreed to it and looked forward to it, and now let’s go forward boldly, honourably and with hope through Christ that all will be well with us into the eternities.

That answer finally sunk in in a way that made me understand it. I was so excited, I sent it to the High Priests group and many replied back continuing the conversation and thanking for the response.

So, as it turns out, Christ gives us weakness to make us teachable and if we are teachable, we can learn how to overcome our weaknesses because we look for answers guided by the Spirit. The way that Christ’s grace is sufficient for all those who humble themselves is that we use our faith to follow Him and through the atonement of Christ and inspiration we can repent and find way to overcome. Then we move from a place of weakness to a place of strength because we now know HOW to overcome our weakness… but we’d never have arrived at this answer if we had simply trusted in the “arm of flesh” or our own thoughts and hadn’t first become humble or teachable.

When I think back in my life about my greatest weaknesses, I’ve struggled for years with many of them thinking that I must be smart enough to figure out how to overcome them, but still couldn’t. Finally when I became sufficiently humble to ask for help from the right resources, the answers came, and almost immediately. Looking back now I wonder why I was so stubborn in the first place which a little humility could have spared me much heartache.

Even the weakness of not understanding certain passages of scripture, when I sufficiently humbled myself to ask about it from the right group of people, and was willing to listen for the answers – God provided the answer to me through my own father, but only once I became teachable.

I love when a conclusion comes round in a circle and finishes so nicely. 🙂

I know by the very fact that this experience happened that weaknesses can be turned into strengths. I seem to become more humble and get over myself more often that I can move from a place of weakness to a place of strength, both for myself, my family and those around me.

I hope you too have grown some by having heard about my experience and learning from the wisdom of others and pray we can all continue to humble ourselves and have faith in Christ so we can become teachable in all things and maximize our strength as a ward.