Weakness is not touted in our culture. We are taught early on of the importance of strength, performance, and reputation in our society. We learn to hide any and all measure of weakness because it will affect our ability to seem strong. The weight of this can be crushing and your weakness, whether it’s personal or professional, becomes the thing you fear the most.
If it is exposed, what will people think of me? How will I ever be respected? So we hide. We fear failure because of its destructive nature to our psyche and our reputation. We also watch as the strengths of other people are magnified and exalted so we long for similar strengths or for our strengths to be magnified.
No doubt our strengths are important and we need to identify where we excel as part of living a fulfilling life, but we should never fear or avoid our weaknesses.
Strengths are helpful, Weakness can be powerful
I’ve read plenty of books written by people touting their strengths and accomplishments, I’ve been to plenty of conferences where the best of the best share about their methods and how you can do it (usually for a fee to the speaker or buying their book).
I’ve learned much from people’s strengths, but I’ve been deeply impacted when people share about their weaknesses. There is something powerful when someone humbly shares about the wisdom and lessons they have learned from “failing” in certain areas or “failing” to live up to expectations, whether it’s personal expectations or other’s.
It seems to be in this humility of someone else that we are invited to be weak ourselves, to be set free from the façade of strength that we feel we must put up to be accepted and promoted. It is powerful in its countercultural nature.
Wisdom from Weakness
On top of its invitational nature, there is so much wisdom with those who walk through their weakness with humility and transparency. Paul in his 2nd letter to the Corinthian church is very transparent about his weakness, longing for it to be removed (don’t we all want that), but then recognizing that God’s power is perfected in our weakness.
I’ve learned a ton from people that have opened up about their weaknesses in financial management, parenting, leadership, teaching, evangelism, and friendship. Likely, more than I have learned from the experts and I’ve seen people thankful from learning from my weaknesses even though I find in myself a wishing for people learning from my strengths.
Paul even goes so far as to say he would boast in his weakness. This makes me and many of us cringe, wondering what would happen if we would so boldly proclaim our weakness. How did Paul get to this place?
Strength in Identity, not in Activity
Paul cared more about Jesus and his relationship with God than he did about his own reputation. He pleaded with God for his weakness to be taken away, but seeing God’s work in it, he became all the more concerned that people who care more about Jesus than they did about associating with Paul.
In Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, the invitation of faith is to admit weakness and need to God first. Faith sets us free from reputation management, self-promotion, and fear. It’s a freedom to forget about yourself and be most concerned with the benefits of others. My failures, past and present, my weaknesses and mistakes become a way to serve and bless others, giving them freedom to be weak and wisdom to walk through life.
It’s ok to be weak, to fail, and to make mistakes. We don’t have to hide them, but in Christ we are able to acknowledge them. No more shame in weakness or failure, and no pride in success or strength. Freedom.
