Today’s verse is a famous Book of Mormon scripture on the theme of weakness. The clarity almost takes your breath away.

So often, we wonder why bad things happen, why God allows certain things to affect or afflict us, and why every human yearns to be good but is held back by innate selfishness. This verse tells us that one reason for our weakness is so that we can learn humility.

Now, God doesn’t want us to be the kind of people who are defeated, kicking dirt, and thinking, “Oh, I’m so weak. I’m useless. I’m garbage.” That’s not humility.

Humility is knowing your place before God and recognizing that He’s God and you’re not. That is an empowering and liberating realization! When we look at our weaknesses as lessons in humility, we’re on the right track.

We all have weaknesses; that could mean things we aren’t good at, an area of life that holds us back, a temptation that plagues us, or even circumstances outside of our control that bring us down. When we can look at those areas of weakness and think, “This is a job for my all-powerful God!” what a demonstration of humility.

God wants us to recognize Him for who He is. He wants us to recognize His Son for who He is and what He did for us. Weakness is one tool that He uses to draw us to the truth.

In the same verse, it says, “my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me.” See the connection between humility and Christ’s saving grace?

We aren’t saved without grace.

We cannot receive grace without humility.

We won’t humble ourselves if we don’t perceive our weakness.

Stay tuned next week for our final Good Word Friday on the theme of weakness, in which we look at the next part of verse 27.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.