The Gift of Frailty

Dear friends, after today, I'll be taking a short break from writing Daily Devos while I travel for the next week or so.  See below for more information on where I am going.  

Tomorrow I am leaving for a week-long service trip to Senegal in Africa.  In preparation for this journey, I was obliged to visit a travel doctor to receive the recommended inoculations and medications to prevent illnesses such as malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, tetanus, and the flu.  

For the past week, I have not felt very good.  I have one shoulder that still aches from a tetanus shot. I've been tired and achy at times, and it doesn't help that it's cedar season in Central Texas, which means my allergies are kicking my butt on top of everything. 

I am feeling a bit frail and not very confident as I prepare to travel halfway around the world to a place I've never been, where I'll also be out of my comfort zone for much of the trip. 

I'm experiencing a disconnect between what I know will be a transformative experience and my fears of not being enough, feeling small and out of place, and generally not capable of being the person I want to be.  

We spend so much of our lives trying to appear strong. We polish our image, manage expectations, and measure our worth by outcomes—success, productivity, spiritual “progress,” or the approval of others. Yet beneath all that striving is a quieter truth we rarely want to face: we are fragile. We are unfinished. We are, in countless ways, still becoming.

And perhaps that is not a problem to solve, but a gift to receive.

Richard Rohr offers a bracing reminder: 

“Frankly, Jesus came to show us how to be human much more than how to be spiritual, and the process still seems to be in its early stages.” 

Rohr’s words expose a common temptation: to treat faith as an escape from humanness rather than an embrace of it. We can mistake spirituality for perfection—mistake holiness for having it all together. But Jesus never invited people into performance. He invited them into truth.

Jesus did not float above weakness. He entered it. He took on flesh and bone, hunger and fatigue, tears and loss. In Gethsemane, He prayed with trembling honesty: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39). That is not the prayer of someone pretending to be invincible. It is the prayer of surrendered humanity—fully alive, fully vulnerable, fully trusting.

Scripture consistently teaches that weakness is not the enemy of grace. Paul writes of his own limitations and hears God’s response: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Notice the holy irony: God’s power does not bypass frailty—it meets us there. It shines through cracks. It works with what is broken. Not because God delights in our pain, but because God is not threatened by our imperfection.

In fact, our frailty may be the very thing that frees us. When we finally admit, “I cannot control everything. I cannot fix everyone. I cannot guarantee the outcome,” we begin to loosen our grip. We stop living as if we are God. We start living as beloved children. And that surrender—painful though it may be—is the doorway into peace.

To embrace your brokenness is not to give up; it is to come home. It is to trust that God’s love is not waiting on a better version of you. God meets you now—messy, complicated, unfinished—and loves you into transformation.

So be gentle with yourself. You are human. And Jesus came to show you how to be beautifully, faithfully human.

Prayer

Gracious God, help me release the illusion of control. Teach me to accept my frailty without shame. Meet me in my imperfections, and form in me a deeper trust. Remind me that I am loved as I am, and that your grace is enough. Amen.

Reflection Questions

1. Where in your life are you most tempted to “perform” strength or spiritual maturity?

2. What would it look like to surrender outcomes to God this week?

3. How might God be using your weakness—not to shame you, but to soften and transform you?