I had just transitioned from leading a college ministry to serving as the teaching pastor at RockHarbor Church (RH), a young, vibrant church plant. I was honored and amazed at the opportunity God had set before me, and desired to make a good impression for those who had trusted me with this role.
Four days after I started at RH I injured my knee playing basketball and found myself hobbling around with a torn ACL, MCL, and PCL. Surgery was performed five weeks later. That first night out of surgery I lay at home unable to sleep. I'm still not sure what happened, but it felt like I was suffocating. I felt a crushing weight on my chest and my heart began to race. I couldn't focus. I was unable to relax. I was completely, and irrationally, terrified.
I managed to get through the night in a Vicodin-induced haze, but my anxiety didn't go away. It grew progressively worse and I spent the whole next day with a relentless sense of nervousness. I had never felt so strange. Nothing sounded enjoyable, and no matter what I tried I couldn't distract myself from how I was feeling. I was embarrassed to be so weak in front of my wife and the visitors that stopped by. The next night was as miserable as the first and by the second day, I was a mess.
I had to preach the next day on brokenness and absolutely hated being the illustration.
I began weeping uncontrollably. I woke up each day with a constant feeling of panic. I didn't know what to do. Praying, journaling, or reading the Bible didn't help. Everything I normally enjoyed lost its spark and became just another reminder of how dark everything had become.
I tried explaining this to some of the leaders at my new church, but I didn't understand what was happening well enough to articulate it. I just knew that I went into surgery as one guy, and came out another. So when I was reluctant to start preaching again, they were naturally a bit confused. I remember one painful conversation at a local park where I was reminded that people had continued to preach as they were dying of cancer, so why couldn't I preach?
On top of the constant anxiety, a deep sense of shame settled upon me. I was humiliated by my struggle. I was the lowest I had ever been, far beyond my ability to cover up.
I lived under this burden for the next three months somehow teaching, pastoring, and trying to understand what was happening. On Easter morning, three months to the day after my surgery, the anxiety went away. Just like that.
Over the next several years the anxiety and depression would come roaring back, seemingly out of the blue, and then disappear after a time. I battled it the best I could, but it was taking a toll on my wife and my colleagues at RH. I vividly recall one Saturday night, walking around in our backyard in the rain, sobbing and calling out to God for help. I had to preach the next day on brokenness and absolutely hated being the illustration. There were times when I simply wanted to run out of the church during our weekend services, rather than try to preach through this.
Some friends finally convinced me to see a Christian counselor. I also went to my doctor and he prescribed some anti-anxiety and sleep meds. I had been fearful of getting on medication, as I didn't want to be "hooked," and I didn't want to believe that God wouldn't heal me. I finally capitulated and promptly gained 50 pounds and lost all interest in sex. I felt less anxiety, but my sense of shame only increased. RH had grown substantially and I was now very publically looking like Jabba the Hut. I asked my doctor about this and he said I could either be fat and happy or skinny and depressed. If those were the options, then I'd gladly choose my new Jabba physique.
Eventually I found new medication that didn't have as many side effects; now I only look like Jabba the Hut's son. I tried to get off the medication a couple of years ago, but ended up on my couch weeping again the day I tried to go without it.
God has continued to walk with me. To this day, the battle has not gone away. But through it I have learned some invaluable lessons about following the way of Jesus.
I'm Not Alone
I was open about my struggle with our church community. What was surprising was how many people in our churches—both leaders and lay people—have the same struggle. Like many of you, I have read many articles (some in Leadership Journal) that tell a stories similar to mine. It is becoming increasing common to hear about the struggle of mental illness from people in our churches. And I have met many appreciative to those of us who have given permission in the faith community to be broken in this way.
I am strongest when I am weekest; I am most usable when I am in over my head; Jesus is most present when I am at the end of my rope.
But there are still stigmas and stereotypes. Some people were unhappy with my openness. They feared I was contributing to our "pill happy" culture and encouraged me to just pray more and read the Bible. They wondered if I just didn't have enough faith, or perseverance, or courage. But that wasn't my experience. I waited years to get on medication. I fasted, prayed against the demonic, exercised—did everything I knew to do to deal with the problem. It wasn't until I took a holistic approach, one that treated my body, emotions, brain, and spirit, that I found help. I worked with a counselor on my emotions, with a spiritual director on my prayer life, with a psychiatrist on my brain chemistry. And I worked out every day. I tried my best to address every area of my life necessary for recovery.
I wish this struggle was cooler (like when you break your arm in junior high and everyone signs your cast). I've tried to live and preach as openly as possible throughout this struggle. And I have experienced the power and grace of God in the midst of it.
For those of you going through it, there is hope. It won't always feel that way. Things do get better, though it may take a long time. You need to find someone who can look at you as you describe this and say, "Me too." I remember a dear friend who would simply come over to my house and sit with me in silence as I tried to wait for the panic, depression, and anxiety to subside. Find those people, and then begin to deal with yourself as a whole and integrated person—not just as a soul trapped in a body that needs more prayer and Bible study.
The Blessing of Weakness
Beyond the stigmas associated with mental illness, there was the pressure to perform at our public gatherings. Trying to get up to teach and not disappoint anybody while I was wanting to crawl into a hole and die, taught me a lot about the relationship between strength and weakness. We are all familiar with Paul's struggle in 2 Corinthians 12. After pleading with the Lord three times to take away his "thorn" in the flesh, God responds: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (12:9). In Powers, Weakness and the Tabernacling of God, Marva Dawn argues that the standard translation of this verse is incorrect. Dawn writes that the verse should be rendered, "My grace is sufficient for you [Paul], for [your] power is brought to its end in weakness." Without delving into the details of her argument, I found her translation persuasive both intellectually and experientially.
God's desire is to work through human vulnerability rather than overcome it. We'll never see his power if we refuse to have ours limited.
Throughout my journey with anxiety and depression, I was brought to the end of my own power. And it was there that God's grace rested on me. I had lost my hope in my personal charisma or charm; my sweet stories or genius sermon illustrations. I was at the end of my power. I didn't have the resources to handle this. And it is at that point, Paul says, that God does some of his best work: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, 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" (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Paul boasts in his weakness because he knows that when his power is brought to its end, Christ's power rests on him. In other words, our power must be limited so that God's might be better put on display. Paul's power is brought to its end in weakness; consequently Paul exalts his weakness because through its existence Christ is able to reveal his presence in him.
We know this, at least in theory. But how much of church culture in the West is built on strength not weakness?
The Christians at Corinth dismissed Paul because he did not demonstrate the credentials of a super-apostle. They believed Christian leaders must be charismatic, powerful, with great and attractive personalities. Their prevailing cultural models were built around rank, status, and achievement. That is the language of "boasting" that Paul uses in this letter. It was considered proper for people to boast and demonstrate their status to others. Paul moves in entirely the opposite direction. He lists his weakness, persecutions, and sufferings and then reveals why this is so. God does his best work, Paul says, when we are at the end of our rope.
God's working through human weakness is a central theme of the Bible. God uses Abraham's age and Sarah's barrenness to give birth to the beginning of the great nation Abraham was promised. Moses wasn't very eloquent and was filled with excuses when God called him to deliver the nation of Israel out of slavery. David was just a kid when he faced Goliath. Peter was the leader of the church only after he denied Jesus three times.
All throughout Scripture, this is God's way. He brings people to a place of weakness so he can use them for his glory. He actively limits their power, so that his might will be shown. It is not that God comes and makes us strong and then uses us. Rather God brings us to the end of our strength, our wisdom, our trust in self, so that we actually have to trust him and not something (or someone) else. This is the paradox of strength and weakness: that I am strongest when I am weakest; I am most usable when I am in over my head; Jesus is most present when I am at the end of my rope.
God's way is not about triumphalism, or becoming bigger than life. It is not about reaching a place where all weakness is gone. Instead it is about having my own power limited so that I can discover how God uses my weakness. If you are like me, you resist limitations. I want to make things happen, plow through problems. I was conditioned to overcome obstacles, not recognize weakness and admit it.
But Paul says that the goal is for our power to come to an end. How can I experience God's power unless I have my own power limited?
Limited Power
You've likely heard the cliché: "God will never give you more than you can handle." It's a phrase we use to comfort each other—and I think we should retire it. I know Paul writes that, "God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" (1 Cor. 10:13). While this is certainly true, it is not quite the same thing as saying God will never give us more than we can handle. In fact, I think Scripture demonstrates that God gives us more than we can handle so that we'll have to trust him.
This is why Paul's teaching on weakness is so profound for the journey of faith. We think faith is supposed to protect us from being brought to a place of such desperation, but Paul suggests that faith is that point of desperation—that is the place where faith and trust in God actually begin.
But so much of American life is designed to keep us from reaching this point. I don't want to be weak. I want to be heroic, powerful, and important. I am conditioned (even in church!) to overcome obstacles, not embrace my limitations.
The point: God's desire is to work through human vulnerability rather than overcome it.
We'll never see his power if we refuse to have ours limited. God's way is not to take us out of trials, but to comfort us with his presence in the midst of them and to exchange our "strength" for his in the face of them. This is how God works out his purposes for the world. He puts treasure "in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Cor. 4:7). By our union with Christ in and through our weakness, we display God's glory.
God shows his true greatness by using the lowly and despised things of the world to bring out his purposes in human history. In his hands, our brokenness can be made beautiful.
He does this so that none of us lives under the illusion that we can do everything on our own. He designs circumstances so that we are in over our heads. He chooses unlikely people so that he gets the credit and glory. He brings us to the end of our sufficiency so that we'll rest in his. We hate this. We want to be seen as experts. Perhaps that is why the church is so infatuated with tools, techniques, and marketing. The American church often shares the surrounding culture's obsession with glory and power. One of the reasons our ministries are so ineffective is because we don't make room for God's power, since we are so enamored with our own. We don't make room for weakness—everything in our churches has to be dynamic and excellent. So we schedule things by the minute, rehearse our transitions and prayers, seek out the next killer series or curriculum or program. And all the while Jesus has moved on to people who have nothing other than him.
The American Dream is to live in our strength; God's dream is that we live in our weakness. The one way of living is completely antithetical to the other. But if we really desire to see God move in mighty ways, to fully embrace the life that Jesus has for us, then we must be brought to the end of our strength. As Dallas Willard has said, "The Christian life is what you do when you realize that you can do nothing."
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I wouldn't have chosen it. Yet, I can't imagine life now any other way. I am thankful for doctors and medicine, and I live an anti-anxiety kind of life—lots of sleep, exercise, and sunlight—but the struggle never goes away completely. It is part of who I am, and part of my journey of faith. Jesus, thankfully, has become bigger and I have become less.
And so I will join Paul in boasting of my weakness, for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Mike Erre is pastor of First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, in Fullerton, California.
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