Can we get honest about our weaknesses

One reason we don’t want to get honest with each other about our weaknesses is because we think that our mistakes and failures define us. There are two different ways to look at our weaknesses, mistakes and failures. The world tells us that our weaknesses, failures and mistakes make us “less than” and affect our worth as a human-being. The world will always measure a person’s worth and success based on their performance. If you excel we will celebrate you in this world, but if you fail you will be defined based on your performance as “a failure”. 


God’s view of our weaknesses, failures and mistakes is very different. God made us and he could have chosen to make us perfect, but instead he chose to make us with weaknesses. My own weaknesses and failures are not a sign that I am “less than”, they are a sign that I was created to exist in a relationship with God. The Bible teaches me that where I am weak, He is strong, but this requires me to let God in. God will never force himself into our lives, we must ask him for help. When I admit my need to God he will give me strength when I am weak, provide where I have a need and redeem what is broken in my life. 

We all have different strengths and weaknesses but each person is weak in some area. The person who tells you that she doesn’t have any weaknesses at all is only working hard at covering them up. Our deficiencies in life are not a sign that we are not “good enough”, it’s a space that God has created for himself in our lives. God is not expecting us to be strong and independent all the time. God wants me to need him, because he wants a relationship with me. If I was a perfect human there would be absolutely no need for God in my life, but God has made sure that I’m far from perfect. I can’t flourish apart from God, I need him, whether I like it or not. This life was meant to be like a dance between God and man, but man decided to leave God out. “I can do this myself” the human said, and here we are. Look how well we are doing by ourselves.

When I try to do life out of my own strength I will fail, mess up and end up exhausted. I wasn’t created to live this life apart from God so when I choose to not let God into my life it’s natural for me to end up worried, anxious, insecure and overwhelmed. I find freedom when I learn to surrender. The moments in your life when you will see God move in powerful ways is often the moments when you are the weakest. The moment I realize that trying harder is not going to work I will finally surrender. When I stop trying to be perfect and say: “God I’m ready to admit that I can’t do this without you, please help me, I need you” that’s when everything shifts. It’s in times like these that we get to see God move in our lives in ways that we could never have imagined. It starts with surrender. One of the greatest obstacles that keep us from knowing God intimately is our own pride. Pride says: “I can do this myself, I don’t need God.” God has left many signs that point to His existence in the universe, like his beautiful artwork; sunsets, mountains, sandy beaches and newborn babies. But another way that God shows himself is by showing up for us where we are weak, if we let him.

God loves every human-being on planet Earth but each human has been given free choice by God. We get around 100 years to decide if we will choose to love God back or not. We can choose to love God back or we can choose to reject him. From the beginning humans have been tempted to build their lives apart from God and do things their own way. The sad thing about this story is that apart from God humans can not flourish. God has created us to exist in relationship with him and apart from him our souls become sick and we end up breaking each other. Saint Augustine stated it well when he said: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” I can choose to struggle through this life alone, or I can learn to “dance with God”.