Main news for 18 December 2025

Why, one wonders, would Paul be content in persecutions, in weakness, or, for example, when he is insulted? And what do the words "when I am weak, then I am strong" mean? At first glance such a position can seem strange. Indeed, only masochists rejoice in suffering; normal people are not like that. Paul, however, was clearly no masochist. What, then, could make him glad?

It should be noted, however, that the matter is not, strictly speaking, joy; the corresponding Greek word denotes rather a calm and balanced state of spirit, which the apostle evidently preserves in spite of the circumstances that have arisen, circumstances that do not at all dispose one to calmness of spirit. But why does such calmness of spirit become a sign of strength? And why does only weakness make Paul strong?

One could say, of course, that the strength of a person's conviction in what he confesses and preaches is generally tested precisely in times of persecution. But the matter is still not only this. The matter is the very nature of the Kingdom. And first of all in the fact that the Kingdom, according to the Savior's word, is "not of this world." And if so, if it lives by laws fundamentally different from the laws of the untransfigured world, then the power of the Kingdom is clearly not determined by what happens to a person in this world. Such independence in itself is the best witness that a person truly belongs to the Kingdom and lives its life, a life that the evil of the world is unable to take away from him because it has nothing in common with it.

But there is another side to this situation as well. It is precisely the feeling of the presence of strength within oneself at moments of complete weakness, that is, when one knows for certain that one has no strength at that moment and cannot have any because there is nowhere for it to come from, that is the best proof that this strength is truly from God. At other moments God's strength can sometimes be confused with the powers of this world, with the natural energy inherent in every healthy person. But when there is no natural energy at all, one can be sure that any strength one feels within oneself is from God. And that means the work for which it is given is God's work.