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I announced a plan and then couldn’t carry it out. I boasted of a good break only to have the break close up into a brick wall. My vision clashes with life’s realities and I discover the weakness of my idealism. It feels like eating crow.

Paul wrote that God chose to use the weak things of the world to confound the mighty in order that no humans should crow, and if you’re going to crow, let it be only in God (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).

Paul claimed that he preached in weakness and trembling in order that his hearer’s trust would be not in human crowing but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).

Paul prayed for strength and was told that Christ’s strength is completed in weakness. So, if he would crow anywhere, Paul chose to crow in his weakness in order that the power of Christ should be able to rest on him (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

I’ve boiled Paul’s message to me into a simple maxim, Don’t make crow; make joy! And make it over knowing God, knowing your own weakness, and knowing the strength that comes from combining God and human weakness.