Your Weakness, His Strength?
My brother made a comment on the last post I’d been thinking a bit about lately so I want to place a note here to flesh out this thing that can be a problem. The problem is, how do we overcome the limits of our simple minds and recognize that even in our weakness, God can draw strength? Moreover, when do we quit placing limits on God’s ability to use us?
Dan’s quote in his comment was, “I keep wasting my time on my strengths and thinking they must be the path God wants to work most through me.” This is exactly what I’d been thinking about and states the idea very well. We all use this excuse for not being more and doing more for God. It starts with saying we’re not ready to become saved or make a commitment to Him because we’re not good enough, or acting right, or in the right place spiritually. It continues when we determine that our weaknesses are too much for God to overcome, so we can’t possibly serve Him in the way we should until those are corrected.
While both of these thought processes are simply part of being human, they show a lack of understanding of the true power of God and His ability to effect change using any part of us. What’s crazy to me is that we’ll read about all the mistakes the Israelites made (their deliverance from Egypt is the most common one to attack) and poke fun at how they continued to forsake God and forget what He’d done and was doing for them, and yet often not make the connection that we do the same.
Admittedly, reading these stories has always seemed a little off to me. I’d see how they seemingly continued to forget God’s grace and would begin to worship idols, or how they’d complain to Moses and Aaron about different things and I’d wonder how they could be so, well, stupid. But I knew somewhere in there as I was pointing my finger at them that there must be three fingers pointing right back at me, though I couldn’t figure out why that was true.
Well, here I am putting limits on God’s ability to use me or place me into any form of ministry because I know my own weaknesses and feel they are too big of a hindrance. I seem to think I need to correct them before I can do something for Him. I struggle to accept His power to use me, His power to change me, and fight off the opportunity to serve Him in a great capacity because I can’t handle these weaknesses. What kind of a dud am I? No need to answer because I know what the issue is. The issue is that I’m human and because of how I was made, my natural inclination will always be to rely on myself before I let God take full control.
God has given each of us abilities and gifts we can use for Him. We all have strengths in certain areas ranging from encouragement to leadership to caring for children to being prayer warriors…the list is unending. And the needs within His kingdom are unending, which is perfect since we are all so different! This way we can each serve Him using our unique set of skills. But to get there, we have to first recognize our weaknesses are a hindrance only if we refuse to let God turn them into strengths or remove them altogether. We don’t have to be perfect to come to God and accept His Son as Savior, and in the same way we don’t have to be perfect to serve Him in whatever ministry He has called us to.
You’ve seen the term “Let go. Let God.”? It really is that simple in terms of execution, but the difficulty is overcoming our own mental block that wants to make things hard. God’s path for us is so easy to find when we allow Him to mold us into who He wants us to be. He wants nothing but good for all His people. Stop getting in the way of His plan, bow to His love for you and let Him use you for His glory. Stop selling yourself short and stop creating excuses for not being all you can be. Remember, this is God’s universe. He created it and has a plan for you to help Him improve it while you’re here, but He’ll never force you to do anything. Remove the veil of misunderstanding from before your eyes and just let…God…reign.
That’s good stuff.
I found myself asking the question, “Just how do I limit God because of my weaknesses?” Oftentimes God is asking me to do something that is right up my alley. He has gifted me for it and it could, in essence, be considered a strength. But that’s not really all there is too it. What if God asks me to step into a whole new territory? When I look into it I find that it is what I am good at (lines up with how God has gifted me) yet it involves taking a real leap of faith. Maybe it is going to force me to develop new skills that I don’t believe I have. Maybe it’s going to simply force me out of my comfort zone and move to a new place or meet new people. While I may be confident that I’m up to the parts of the task that play to my strengths, I may have no confidence whatsoever in the parts that play to my weaknesses.
There are many in the world who go forth in confidence even when they don’t have a clue what they are doing. It’s just personality. The rest of us, however, must develop a similar attitude based not in personality but rather trust in God. With this mind-set, or should we say “faith-set,” I can boldly go where I have never gone before. And I can do this trusting that if God has called me to it, He will provide. That goes for my weaknesses as well.
Well said, Dan, and thanks for adding on some great detail to what I’ve written. What’s also nice is that by using the phrase, “I can boldly go where I have never gone before” in explaining how ministry can open up, I can now always think of ministry whenever I think of Star Trek. In other words, by simple statement you have just associated God with Trekkies in my head, and I find that to be a good thing because the more things that come to mind which I associate with God or ministry, the more easily my focus remains on Him. Deep, eh?
You know we were talking about something similar the other night in Oasis, our women’s group. We were discussing Rebekah and how God had given her a promise. The problem was that Rebekah, like most humans, let doubt and weakness get in the way. She did not wait for God’s timing and way for that promise to be fulfilled. As a result, even though the promise was fulfilled, she paid a price. Unlike Isaac, who only had one inheritance, God has enough to give to everyone. He can also find the one that fits us perfectly. We however, with our strengths and weaknesses, have to be open to his voice and guiding. That is not always the easiest thing. We have to be willing to stretch ourselves in His guidance. It reminded me of my favorite movie, Pride and Prejudice. In the movie Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth Bennett that he does not possess the ability to converse easily with others. Her response to him, “Maybe you should take your aunt’s advice and practice.” Ouch. But she was right, our weaknesses will always stay weaknesses unless we take the time to work on them. It may not always be easy at first, but if we are following God’s will, working for Him, and let Him lead us; we will be rewarded.
Another thought with all of this, relating to what you were talking about, as to our weakness and the weakness of the Israelites … The reason we were talking about Rebekah is that we are doing a study called “Women of the Bible” Now in this regard, we obviously touch on the men in their lives and God’s people that played an important role in the Bible. With this said, it is true that these people have made lots of mistakes. And at first the general thought was how can these people be remembered as great people in the Bible with all the mistakes they have made. Judgement right? Not our place! But the more we talked about it the more we agreed that the better perspective was, “Look at what these people accomplished and are remembered for.” “If they could do all of that with all their faults, and still be God’s people” … Wow! Maybe there is hope for me. With all my faults,sins, and weaknesses I can still be useful to God if I let Him do His work in me. Such a nice alternative to judgement.
Exactly, Stacy! That’s exactly what I was getting at and you said it well. Thanks for adding.