Weakness

I am going to try to process some stuff that I've been thinking about here. This is mostly for my benefit, but maybe someone else will get something out of it.

There are two places that these thoughts stem from, one being Dave's sermon from last night about "stepping up" when faced with tests/temptations and the other being The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard (chapter 3, to be more precise), which Katie and I are reading together.

Willard talks about salvation being for our life. He says it much more eloquently, but one of the main points he makes is that most of Christianity now focuses on the cross. Not that the cross is not absolutely vital to Christianity, but the fact of the matter is that the cross would not have been significant if Christ hadn't first lived. The cross was not a single event, it was the culmination of everything that Christ had taught, it was the climax of His life. Christ did not just to save us from sin and get us into heaven, he died to save us from sin in this life, to give us power to live.

The thing that Dave said last night that struck me the most was the statement that the devil doesn't mind us doing the right thing as long as we're not doing it by the grace of God. Sometimes some of the things that I may view as "temptations" are mere inclinations, something that I've disciplined myself to not give in to.

This might not sound right, but I think the majority of my life is lived by my own strength. I know that God is behind it in the sense that he made me the way I am, but most of the time, I don't really acknowledge how God is at work in my life on a daily basis. How much is God glorified by that attitude?

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I've always loved this verse, but when I read it this morning, God gave me a new understanding of what it means to delight in my weaknesses. It's kind of like school. If I had been a business major (sorry, not trying to bash anyone's major, just giving an example), my graduation would not have meant as much to me. For me, that major would have taken work, but would not have required as many sacrifices of time and energy. I wouldn't have been living up to my potential. As it was, I had to work really hard for my engineering degree and it therefore has a greater value to me. In the same way, if I just live my life in my comfort zone, where I know that I won't fail, I'm also not living up to my potential. It's not really a sacrifice to do what is easy and natural for me. If I choose to do what is unnatural to me, something that is a weakness for me, God will provide for me, and more importantly, because I have less confidence in my own abilities, I will better realize the part that God played and that I was acting through His power. And if I am more aware of what God is doing in my life and for me, that I will be better able to bring Him glory.

Not that God cannot work through our strengths as well. I Peter 4:11 says, "If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." This verse is helpful to me because I really do love serving and it is something that I think God has really given me a heart to do, but it can also be easy for me to do it when it is more "convenient" or to get tired of doing it, but that it when I can better depend on Him and His strength. I want to be stretched to use my strengths as well as my weaknesses.

So, what I am thinking through right now is, what are my weaknesses? Areas that I avoid because I want to avoid "failing" and because they are areas that make me very uncomfortable. I am not trying to dwell on my weaknesses for the sake of being melancholy or depressed or self-critical, but because I want to recognize those as areas for God to be glorified. Because as I face things that I normally would avoid, I will be continually aware that my motivation to do them is not because I naturally want to do them.

I still need to think through this some more, but I am hoping to look at some of my areas of weakness and come up with some very specific things to do that could help draw me out of my comfort zone. We'll see what happens...