Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday February 17, 2010

As I grow a little older and hopefully much wiser I am becoming convinced of the necessity of facing ourselves, and brutally so as to identifying our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

Most people including people of some level of faith spend the entirety of life denying personal weakness. The idea seems to be "If I refuse to name it I don’t have to claim it and it, whatever it happens to be will go away." It would be lovely t'were it true.

The best barometer of weakness is to take notice of the trait that you most vehemently deny. This denial is done in a number of ways none of which really work, but folks persist in using these denial mechanisms to the max. Placing blame is a prime indicator of a weakness. A personal weakness is NOT someone else's fault.

When we try to place blame we miss the real chance for growth. This growth that the Lord sees as essential for us to identify, overcome and grow was placed into our makeup to force us to honestly find ourselves and grow to our full potential. Simple.

The story has it that an ancient man stuttered and also spoke very softly. He did not complain about others failing to "understand me" but he acknowledged both aspects of his weakness, went down by the sea and while the waves roared against the shore, Demosthenes, with mouth full of pebbles, learn to speak clearly and forcefully and is said by historians to be the greatest orator of the ancient world. He could have spent his life blaming his weakness on a dog having barked and frightened his mother while he was in the womb. This may have happened. Who knows? We do know he owned his fault and learned to overcome.

For years I have studied in wide eyed wonder at just how the Lord took the giants we read about in scripture, showed their weakness to them, gave them victory and then broke them in their strong areas to lead them to understand that any lasting spiritual victory is gained through His spirit working through human weakness and strengths.

A man known for writing some really grand stories and also for a few glaring weaknesses, Robert Louis Stevenson said:

"You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?"

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2010 Use with credit.

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