Bay-la Ba-reen-e was the Hungarian version of Thomas Edison. This man was a prolific inventor. Specifically, he worked in the automobile industry inventing things like the three-point seatbelt your car uses, improvements to automatic transmissions, energy absorbing bumpers, and the Ba-reen-e cell, one of the first safety cages meant to protect drivers and passengers in the event of a crash.
In 1997, Mercedes Benz produced an advertisement with Bay-la’s face on it and the words, “no one in the world has given more thought to car safety than this man.” Bayla Ba-reen-e held over 2,500 patents in his lifetime.
But today, we need to talk about Patent number 854-157.
I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.
Ba-reen-e was fascinated by car safety and passionate about making it work, but patent number 854-157 is likely his boldest idea ever. Make cars safer by making them weaker. Bay-la Ba-reen-e is the inventor of the crumple zone. The crumple zone is also known as the deformation zone. He proposed that vehicles should have specific areas at the front and rear designed to deform and absorb energy in the event of a collision, protecting the occupants by dissipating the impact forces. In short, if vehicles breakdown in the right places, the vehicle might be lost, but the passengers could be saved.
Now, we consider this idea commonplace today. Crumple zones are standard in every car in the modern automobile market. But at the time, imagine Bay-een-e making his pitch. “I’d like to take these solid steel vehicles that we are currently building and improve them by taking them and weakening them at stress points so they will buckle.” Can you imagine the advertising for that vehicle? “Buy our car, it will really bust up good in a crash!” or “Your next Mercedes-Benz, now with pre-made crumple zones!”
The thing is – Ba-reen-e was right. Make the cars lighter, build in areas that are weak and are known to break at impact and the occupants are safer – significantly safer. Turns out, vehicle safety is perfected in weakness… and at this point, you might be guessing where I’m going with this.
Weakness is a part of the human condition. It is woven into the fabric of who we are. So much so that when describing the job of the high priest, Hebrews says
[Heb 5:1-2 ESV] 1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.
We don’t just have weaknesses, we are BESET by weakness. There are crumple zones all over the place with us. Your body has a toothache, a sliver, a strained muscle, or the ever terrifying “I threw out my back event” and the whole show stops. Paul knew the impact that physical weakness can have upon us. He had what he called his “thorn in the flesh” which is an interesting turn of phrase all on its own – after all, that’s all it takes to really upset our day, a little thorn. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was a physical illness, the details of which are unknown to us, but they were VERY MUCH known to Paul, and this is what he did – he prayed for God to remove it.
[2Co 12:8-10 ESV] 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul’s physical weakness opened the door for him to preach the gospel in places like Galatia (see Galatians 4:13 on your own time about how that played out), but it also taught him a valuable lesson about God’s grace. God’s grace didn’t remove suffering, it gave Paul the hope and humility to trust God through that suffering. Paul’s physical weakness was a crumple zone that protected his soul. This is a good reminder to us when temporary sickness such as the flu or a stomach bug slows us down… maybe we needed to be slowed down so that we could be in the right place to do what God wants. And it is also a reminder when sickness is less temporary – the lingering effects of a concussion, a season ending sports injury, cancer, a permanent back injury, blindness, deafness, or other major physical challenge. These weaknesses don’t have to be excuses – they can be faith builders, not faith destroyers. When we understand crumple zones are engineered weaknesses, it gives us perspective. Your body might be buckling for a bigger reason.
But it isn’t just physical weaknesses that can do this, emotional weaknesses are a real thing, too. Elijah’s emotional crumple zone happened under a broom tree. After a wildly successful victory over idolatry, Elijah was chased into the wilderness by Queen Jezebel. Just when Elijah thought everything was going to get better, it got so much worse, and Elijah just buckled. That’s what 1 Kings 19 records
[1Ki 19:4 ESV] 4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."
Did you catch that last line? “I am no better than my fathers.” Elijah understood there were limits to what a human could endure… and he wasn’t talking about physical endurance, he was talking about emotional endurance. David found the same thing in Psalm 6:
[Psa 6:2-7 ESV] 2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. 3 My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD--how long? 4 Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love. 5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise? 6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. 7 My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.
And as far as David is concerned – Psalm 6 is just the tip of the iceberg. David repeatedly writes about emotional weakness in the Psalms. Time after time after time, David cries out to God for help, endurance, and hope. Now remember, both Elijah and David are no featherweights. Elijah is probably one of the toughest prophets ever recorded and David is the mighty warrior of Israel. Both had stood in battle, swung swords, and looked death in the eye – yet, emotional weakness is part of their makeup. These men cried, loudly, and often.
But who did they cry to? That’s right. They cried to God. The God that loved them in their weakness. The God whose love would see them through the emotional turmoil of unmet expectations, dashed dreams, betrayal, and emptiness. Their emotional crumple zones protected their souls by leading those souls to God.
We are made with weakness and fragility because of love. If your body gives out, you get weary, or your emotions become frayed – this isn’t a design flaw, this a design feature. God wants you weak so you can see His love. Time and time again the Bible talks about God making people strong in their weakness (Hebrews 11:34) or Paul talks about how he was with the brethren in weakness and in fear and much trembling in 1 Corinthians 2:3 and Romans 8:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Our weak days, our hearts that have limits, and our bodies that stumble are meant to. There is supposed to be a boundary of what you can do before you need to reach out to God for strength and help. Our weakness bonds us to Him and, if we let it, it can help us bond to one another as well. Vulnerable Christians are united by their common reliance on grace.
Which brings me to the last idea behind your life’s crumple zones. Crumple zones is really a non-technical way of describing those weak points in your car that are there for your safety. The technical term isn’t crumple zones it is ‘deformation zones’. The car is deformed for safety. It changes form because a new form means the occupants are safe.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he tries to get them to understand that their physical bodies are like seeds. Seeds have to die in order to grow into plants. They must be deformed in order to be reformed. They have to be radically deformed – a sunflower seed has to go through extensive deformation to become a sunflower. And here is Paul’s point, in his own words…
[1Co 15:42-49 ESV] 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Do you see that? Our bodies are weak becomes they need to be deformed, crumpled, and reshaped so we can bear the image of the man of heaven. Those crumple zones of weakness are like creases in origami – it means we are meant to be folded into something much greater.
So, I want you to do yourself a favor. Embrace your weakness. Crumple into the strength of God’s love.
Love better – find His love in your weakness.
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