Basket Case

"Frankly, I don’t care for spiritual power much myself. I’ve gotten along much better with spiritual weakness" (G.K. Chesterton, Father Brown).

A few weeks ago I mentioned my most embarrassing moment—a brain-fade on an auspicious occasion. This morning I read Paul's account of his most embarrassing moment:

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands" (2 Corinthians 11:30-33).

Paul arrived in Damascus, a newly minted Christian, expecting to set the church on fire. After years of persecuting Christians Paul was now on God's side, God's greatest gift (sans One) to the church. With Paul's vast education, intellectual brilliance, and oratorical skill he could greatly advance the cause of Christ.

Instead of a revival, Paul precipitated a riot. The folks there agreed that they had to get Paul out of town before he caused irreparable damage to the church and, under cover of darkness, put him in a foul-smelling fish basket, lowered him from a window in the wall of the city, and sent him packing (c.f., Acts 9:25). This was Paul's most humiliating moment.

But, this was also the moment in which he took the most pride, a memory that kept him in touch with his limitations. This is the night Paul learned to "boast in the Lord," and not in his own prowess.

"Our sufficiency is of God," Paul wrote in another occasion. If we expect to get anything done for God it will be through weakness and not through strength. That's why God, though he could have chosen anyone, has chosen the foolish, the inept, the improbable,  the impossible—a bunch of basket-cases, if you will—to get his work done.

Which is why he has chosen you and me.

David Roper

6.1.19