The Strength to be Weak

Be honest, would you say you’re a strong person, or a weak person?

Chances are you either said you are some variation of strong, or you felt inadequate about admitting you might be weak.

But what if I told you your perception of these two conditions might be backward, and the very thing you think makes you who you are (your strength) is instead the very thing that’s holding you back from the life you were intended for?

Please allow me to explain.

Practically from the time we take our first steps, it is drummed into our brain (by parents, siblings, friends and Hollywood) that we must be strong in order to succeed or survive – without getting pushed around – in this world.

Only the strong survive.

Fight fire with fire.

Fight like a man.

Man up.

These aren’t just catchy slogans or bumper stickers; they’re society’s way of supposedly separating the mighty from the wimpy.

And the problem is, most of us buy it, hook, line and sinker.

But the fact is, our so-called worldly strength is really just a delusion.

Any sudden, unexpected funeral proves that.

And though you might disagree, in some ways, the stronger or tougher we are just might be a good measuring stick for how much we have allowed Jesus to penetrate our heart.

For example, how many of us refuse to be “disrespected” or “called out” so we don’t look cowardly?

How many of us blame our upbringing, genetics, experiences or environment for why we have a quick temper, sharp tongue, or the attitude that we’re “not going to take crap from anyone?”

All of us have, or still do, because that’s exactly how the world has conditioned us.

Yet, that’s not the way Jesus taught us to be, and it certainly doesn’t correspond with how and why He died for us.

“Yea, well, Jesus doesn’t expect me to be perfect like Him,” right?

Don’t you see, that is exactly the cop-out the world has brainwashed us to believe?

Of course Jesus doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but that’s not the point.

Jesus didn’t command us to love our enemies, pray for those who mistreat us or turn the other cheek just so it would make a great fortune cookie; He said these things specifically so we could know what it truly feels like to have Him in our hearts.

In reality, this may be one of the clearest examples of how Jesus loves us, despite the fact that we constantly hurt Him with our actions.

And He gives these commands because He knows that as long as we let the actions of others dictate our anger, language and negative reactions, the longer we will be slaves to the world’s disguised misery.

C.S. Lewis gives us an excellent illustration of what Jesus is trying to tell us.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because He has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

The only way we’re ever going to experience the life He intends for us – not just superficially, but deep in our hearts – is to genuinely consider exactly why Jesus had to die for us.

But some of us consciously or subconsciously refuse to “go there” because if we do, we’re confronted with an undeniable truth.

And the truth is Jesus, and the reality that without Him doing what He did for us, our lives would carry us only as far as our “worldly strength” takes us – to the grave.

It should absolutely terrify us when we honestly realize that no matter how strong we are – no matter how tough we are, no matter how many arguments we win or how many times we are “right” – we are in desperate need of a Savior.

Yet in the same breath, it should absolutely exhilarate us to know we have one!

But we’ve got to first reach the point of acknowledging our inescapable weakness before we can understand our true strength.

Jesus’ life and death doesn’t just show us how to live, it shows us how we can break free from the world’s stranglehold on the way it has taught us how to think.

Jesus won on the cross by dying on the cross, and the world considered that losing.

However, the only thing that lost that day was death’s grip on us, and the deceitful notion that worldly strength provides us the life we’re looking for.

Because the only way we’ll truly discover the life Jesus intended for us is to possess the incredible strength to be weak.

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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Healing our Hoarding

My wife Amanda and I were watching the television show Hoarders: Buried Alive the other night when a depressing thought occurred to me.

Could that ever happen to me?

So many of us watch shows like this and think “how could these people live like that?” or “how could they let things get so far before getting help?”

And that’s when the thought hit me…maybe we’re ALL in danger of falling victim to the perils of extreme hoarding.

But the kind of hoarding I’m referring to, however, can’t be seen by the human eye and is exponentially more threatening to our lives than a home stacked waist-high in a cluttered mess.

No, the extreme hoarding I’m talking about is extreme Emotional Hoarding, and it is wedged deep within the darkest reaches of our souls.

A big reason for this is because we live in a society that tells us to be independently strong, to stand on our own two feet, to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and that any sign of fear is a cowardly display of weakness.

I certainly don’t want to minimize the positives of a healthy self esteem, but many of the people we think of as having a healthy self esteem are internally petrified amidst a pile of Emotional Hoarding debris.

Tragically, Emotional Hoarding is born from our inability and unwillingness to confess – not just our sins, but all our secret fears, doubts, guilt, insecurities, habits, addictions, etc. – even to the ones nearest and dearest to us.

Much like the TV show where the homes can look normal on the outside, our outward appearance may seem just fine, but that is only because we have constructed a stone fortress wall around our hearts that hold all these things – fearing someone might see through to those dark secrets.

But, unlike the subjects on TV, the effects of this silent, inward suffering produces a terrifying psychological hardening, never allowing us to feel 100% free or comfortable in our own skin because “if anyone knew ________ about me, they’d never feel the same about me again.”

Now, I totally get how difficult it is to just voluntarily open ourselves up to others about very personal subjects, but think of a world where we could actually do just that?

I’m sure you’re wondering that even if we could, how would that help us mend such deep scars?

Well, just imagine if you came home from work one day, turned on the TV and suddenly heard your name and every – and I do mean EVERY – sin, secret and insecurity only you knew about yourself being broadcast in HD on the evening news?

Just the thought of that makes us ill, right?

However, if you really think about it, though it might be the most frightening moment of our life, it would also serve as the most freeing moment of our life too.

Yes, it would be crushing to hear, but as soon as it was all out there, we would no longer have to fear someone finding out the unthinkable about us anymore.

In the New Testament, James tells us in chapter 5 that we should “Confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that WE may be healed.”

Again, a scary thought, I know.

But I think we have to ask ourselves, is it any more dreadful than living in a world where a grieving widow can’t bear to let anyone find out about the horrible guilt he carries because a hurtful argument was the last time he spoke to his wife before she suddenly died?

Or where a woman who finally feels she has found the love of her life but is riddled with terror that he might find out about her promiscuous past?

All because “if anyone knew ________ about me, they’d never feel the same about me.”

I think author Donald Miller put it best when he wrote, “I have sometimes wondered if the greatest desire of man(kind) is to be (fully) known and loved anyway.”

So how do we at least begin the healing process?

Where do we start?

Well, the first thing we need to understand is that despite what the world may tell us, we need to start by admitting our weakness to ourselves – that we, like SO many others are simply a little broken inside.

If you ask me, THAT takes amazing strength!

It’s actually the key that we recognize our weakness, because that’s when we’ll finally realize we need the power of something/someone much stronger than ourselves to get through something so enormous.

But many of us don’t have someone we feel close enough to dump our baggage on, and even if we do, we fear losing their love or respect if we were to spill it all out on them.

What about Jesus?

I mean it’s not like He doesn’t already know what has built this massive wall around our heart anyway.

Just start getting alone for about 15-30 minutes at a time and just talk to Him, no fancy prayers or words, no pretense, no more hiding from shame.

And please don’t underestimate what you think He might say to you.

If you pour your heart out to Him, eventually He will pour Himself into your heart.

Then maybe with His strength you’ll be able to take the next step and confide in someone else without the fear of vulnerability.

Because all we really need is to just hear someone say, “Really? Is that ALL you were worried about? That could never change how much I love you.”

Let Jesus be the first to tell you this and then the healing process will finally begin.