What do you guard regarding your temptations? Where is your primary focus? Do you primarily guard your strengths or your weaknesses?
It makes sense to guard our weaknesses. If I’m a drunk I want to pay special attention to my weaknesses and not fall into sin because of my known weakness.
I think most of us tend to guard our weaknesses more than our strengths. Maybe with some their strengths are not guarded at all. It was Oswald Chambers who said “An unguarded strength is a double-weakness.” I have found this to be very true with scores of folks I have counseled over the years. Here are a few illustrations I’ve encountered:
A 12-year girl is super-intelligent (strength), but her parents do not realize that this is her way of gaining acceptance and feelings of significance. Her dad is not an encourager and she has feelings of insecurity. She found out early on that she had a God-given ability, her intellect. She receives applause for her good grades and it seems so right. What her family does not see is they are encouraging her idolatry. Their acceptance of her good grades feeds her craving for attention. Her strength is her biggest weakness.
A successful business man could never please his daddy. Today the son is a wealthy workaholic salesman. He found out early on that people were drawn to him. Everybody who meets him loves him. He has charisma (strength) that draws people who want to be around him. However he is a people-pleaser. His desire to be accepted and liked satisfies a lot of childhood sadness and internal turmoil. Some people see him as a model of success. But his success has truncated his relationship with God because he doesn’t take stands at times when his family needs him to lead spiritually. His greatest strength is also a debilitating weakness.
A friend has been noted for having a strong gift of mercy. She is always pulling for the underdog and serving those who seem to have the odds stacked against them. She is a giving and caring person (strength). However, it is a gift run amuck. She has had a life of tragedy, disappointment and heartbreak. Today when she sees the down-and-out her desire to help trumps her discernment and in some cases she is taken advantage of. Her strength (mercy) is also her weakness.
In all three of these illustrations these people have good gifts from God. But because of sinful heart motives that have been shaped by several means, their gifts, which no one would ordinarily think to guard, are actually weaknesses.
I have found that with most people, including myself, strengths are typically unguarded. It should provoke us to think deeper about what we see on the surface and how we think about our friends.
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