Have you ever been so weak, so weary, so wounded that your legs gave out? You did not even have strength to stand up! Occasionally, I have heard people use the expression “weak in the knees.” It is just another way of stating what all of us experience at some point: we cannot stand on our own!

Spiritually speaking, this is the reality that God is working to bring to our understanding. Psalm 147:10 says that God “taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.” He is not impressed by our ability to move things forward, how tall we can stand, or how quickly we can move. We are all weak flesh and we must learn not lean on our own strength (Proverbs 3:5).

When figuratively your legs let you down and you fall on your face, it is a reminder that your greatest need is to bow before the Lord and depend on His power. In the darkest days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln said, “I have been driven to my knees many times by the realization that I had no where else to go.”

This is not just true on difficult days; it is true every day. We need God. We have no where else to go!

God will even allow crutches you have rested on to be knocked out in order to teach you to lean only on Him. Anything – everything – that brings you low is actually a gift. The lower you go, the nearer you come to God. “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart…” (Psalm 34:18). “Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off” (Psalm 138:6).

In so many ways, the condition of our world and the pressing need all around us serves to drive us to our knees. But the only way to advance is on your knees! You cannot stand on your own and you cannot move forward without God.

And here is the amazing truth. When we fall on God, He gives us His strength to stand in. He says, “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees” (Hebrews 12:12).

I doubt you have ever prayed for weakness! Yet David said that God “weakened my strength in the way.” Why? He doesn’t want you in your strength; He wants you in His strength. And the only way to get you to His strength is first to get you to your weakness.

Are you weak in the knees today? Good! You are about to hear from God. “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

When life brings us to our knees, it is just bringing us to God.