Gateway Weakness: Letting God Into My Lack

What if my lack is just the opening God uses for my greatest work?

When it comes to mission in life, most of us tend to be drawn toward our strengths. If I’m going to make a difference in the world, surely it will be through the things I do well, the things that are easy for me.

When it comes to profession, I can see why this would be the case. Most of us wouldn’t deliberately pursue a paid job we know we won’t be good at. But in my experience the kingdom of God is different.

This doesn’t mean that God always calls people who don’t have the proper skills to do what he is asking of them, but that he never seems to let that be a barrier.

There is a saying “God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.” I often struggled with this. Does this mean that God doesn’t want me to use my talents for him? That instead he’s going to prepare someone else to do the things that come naturally and easily to me and call me to something else entirely where my skills are useless?

I don’t think that is probably the case, though I’m sure that does happen. But that doesn’t mean my life’s work will be limited to my own vision of it.

I have a limited view of myself. I think I know my strengths and weaknesses, I have strong preferences based on my limited experience and I tend to build my life around these things.

But fortunately, that’s not how God sees me. He sees all that I can and could be, not just where I currently am in my development.

If I look back at my life, I am doing some things now that I never could have predicted. I still carry some of the same talents I had when I was young, and yes, I’m even still using some of them. But I’ve also been drawn into others that I never could have imagined.

The real transformation is not when God uses our strengths, any good manager should be able to do that, but when he uses our weaknesses as a way to expand our usefulness for his kingdom work.

I hate this, I really do because I like to do things from a position of strength. My performance based brain wants to show what I can do, but when God uses my weaknesses, it becomes all about him instead.

I’ve always expected a lot of myself. When I was younger I would have called myself an overachiever. I don’t like to have areas of weakness, let alone showcase them. But that tends to be exactly what God does. When I’m struggling in my parenting, I’m presented with opportunities to support other parents while regularly admitting how flawed I am in this area. Instead of advocating for marriage from the safety and security of a blissfully happy one, I get to talk about why marriage is worth the fight, while laboring daily through spiritual crisis and mental illness.

Every time I’ve had an opportunity to teach on a topic and lead in a ministry, I find that I have as much to learn as I do to share. I’ve almost come to expect it. I taught a class on confession this week, and I was honestly tempted to avoid it because I didn’t want to be challenged in that area.

When I look at my children, I am can often see where they struggle clearly. My son can’t hold still. My daughter doesn’t like to be told what to do. My three year old likes to get his own way. Some of these are developmental, some are personality and some reflect weakness. A brain whose chemicals aren’t quite balanced,  heart that needs to find humility and spirit whose worth needs to be affirmed.

As a parent, it’s easy to zero in on these areas and worry that these will be barriers to my children achieving all that I want for them in life.  But when I allow myself to look at them the way God sees them, in each of those weaknesses, I can see potential.  I feel powerless how to bring that potential about, but I have confidence that hands greater than mind are molding my children day by day, into who they are meant to be. I am a partner in this process, but it is not my job to make it happen.

Rather than worrying, I can be optimistic. Instead of dread, I can feel confident. I am grateful that I serve a God who uses apparent foolishness to confound the wise. I need to be willing to hand him all of me, not just my strengths and say, “I am here, Lord, use me.”