Unguarded Strengths

An Unguarded Strength is a Double Weakness

In a devotional from My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers talks about an unguarded strength being a double weakness. I first heard this idea in a sermon at Quest Community Church many years ago and jotted it down in my "write a blog about this someday" list. I guess today is finally someday. I have thought about it many times over the years, about what exactly it means for a strength to be a double weakness. Chambers explains it as "where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength" and points out the people in the Bible usually stumbled over their strong points, not their weak ones.

There are a few ways I see this could happen in our lives. As humans, we seem to have an innate ability to take something benign and use it for evil (think the wonder of the internet, used for child pornography). So why would it be farfetched that we can take something we are great at - a strength - and do the same? We are taught from a young age to maximize our strengths, so it stands to reason we would have a blind spot for seeing that strength as a possible weakness. 

One way to take a strength and make it a weakness is to allow it to become an idol in our life because it gets us accolades or applause or attention. Our strength - intelligence, a specific talent, an athletic ability - becomes the master with us being a slave to get the next "atta boy." Another way is when our strength becomes a facade hiding our authentic self, becoming a substitute for something missing in our life. Maybe our great work ethic is actually hiding a workaholic avoiding the issues at home in our marriage or with our kids, or it replaces striving to impress an impossible-to-please father with striving to impress our boss. Another is by using our strength in excess or out of balance to the detriment of others. Instead of using our charisma to be a leader or lobby passionately for a cause we believe in, we actually become bossy or overbearing or patronizing toward others. The final way I thought of that a strength can become a weakness is when it is used to mask a fear. Maybe our compassion for others is actually coming from a place of never being able to say "no" because we are afraid someone will think bad of us. 

So, once we recognize we have allowed our strength to become a weakness, is the answer to stop using our strength? Of course not. But if we examine our strength and realize our intentions are not always pure and we have muddied the water of our "gift" by using it for self-glory, we should identify it for what it is and take steps to get back to humility. And do that again the next time. Because we are all a work in progress and in this era of social media offering instant gratification, it makes a humble heart even more difficult to maintain. Not an excuse, just a reality. 

Impure motivations, feeding our own narcissism, abusing our God-given talents/strengths, manipulating our strengths to feed our egos... These all seem to boil down to one thing - pride. Sometimes, even if we recognize what we are doing when using our strengths, that our motives are no longer (or never were?) pure, we blame someone else. Maybe we blame that impossible-to-please father, or others who "shaped" us and in the process created these holes we spend our lives trying to fill. And without excusing or justifying poor behavior or treatment from people in our past, we have to move beyond being a victim to truly embrace and use our strengths with humility, no ego strings attached. 

Sources:

Beware of the Least Likely Temptation | My Utmost For His Highest

How Your Unguarded Strength Can Become a Double Weakness (lifeovercoffee.com)

Warning: Your strength can become your weakness | Voice (christianpost.com)