"I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses."  That's a switch isn't it-- from blow your own horn and sing your own praises to boasting in weakness?

Little children come by boasting naturally when they holler, "Watch me." 

I remember as a Boy Scout hanging as many badges and patches on my uniforms as possible.  NFL players display pride and feats of prowess in the end zone by strutting and prancing and cavorting about.  Old ladies who talk your ear off with their certain opinions and judgments display just a different variation of boasting in self.  Who escapes it?  Not the young; not the old.

In fact, we are taught in our culture to be aggressive; in the business world to be assertive.  Be confident.  Approach an interview ready to sell yourself.  Take pride in yourself.

So, by boasting in weakness isn't Scripture asking the preposterous?  When there is so much to be said about holding your chin up, squaring your shoulders, proudly displaying your trophies and bragging on your kids, isn't that the way to go? 

But hold on.

St. Paul is not saying we should not boast.  In fact, we Christians make the most astonishing and towering claims.  We do boast.  We claim imputed righteousness and eternal life.  We assert we can do all things through Christ.  We claim and boast that our confession of the Christian faith is divine truth.  We boast of a faith centered in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the virgin's son.  We boast Christ's atoning death and bodily resurrection.  We profess ourselves to be "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God." (1 Peter 2:9)

With such immodest claims, some will certainly then say to us Christians, "You seem awfully sure of yourself."

NO, not sure of myself.  But I am certain about Him who has come for us - Jesus Christ. 

There's the point.

None of us, any of us, can claim to have mastered sinful pride and our inflated ego.  We become more sophisticated in managing and marketing our pride as we get older, but we still love to see our name in print.  To boast in weaknesses is to deny that very self.  It is renunciation of personal achievement, dignity, and talent.

How hard this is for us. 

In fact, it is impossible even though we may struggle all our life to be humble.  That is why Christianity is not about making someone over.  The Christian faith is not some sort of spiritual plastic surgery.  It is about dying to self and boasting in nothing of ourselves except our profound weakness.

As a sinner, I have not only an Achilles' heel, I have an Achilles' head, an Achilles' heart, and Achilles' hands.  Romans 7:18 is so right, "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing."

My weaknesses, the weaknesses of which I boast are a few droplets of baptismal water, a crust of Eucharistic bread, one small swallow of wine, and a simple sentence of pardon even though expressed by a man, though ordained, who has his own weaknesses.

The Christian says; I have a weakness for the Word of God and for what my Lord Christ says, "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."