The Benefits of Sharing Our Weakness
And my journey to overcoming one of mine
It’s the end of church service on Sunday. The message of the day was different. It was powerful. Both the message and the preacher made such an impact. This is not a message to forget anytime soon.
While reflecting on the message, I couldn’t help but imagine the holy life the preacher must be living. He must be sinless. Perfect in every way. So confident and steadfast in the Lord and unshaken in his determination to serve God. Surely no temptation can be great enough for such a man of God. Maybe one day, I will be able to live like him.
If you’re a Christian and you’ve been to more than a few church services, I’m sure you’ve had an experience like this. When we picture our favorite preacher, we immediately imagine perfection.
The preacher must be a perfect example for us to follow. We imagine that the temptations we struggle with are easy battles for the preacher.
The hidden message of perfection
There’s a subtle message that follows a lot of teachings — the teacher knows and believes what they teach. This is not only in the church. In any system where someone shares information with people, this unspoken expectation exists.
If a teacher is explaining some concepts to students, we expect her to be able to answer the student’s questions. We expect her to be an expert in the subject matter.
When we apply this concept to the church, we have the same expectation from the preacher. But unlike a teacher limited to a particular topic, the preacher’s subject is way more complex — it’s about life in general.
With this expectation, we’re unable to separate the message from the messenger. If they say these things with so much conviction and power, it must be their words. And if it’s their words, they must be living it. Why else would they sound so convincing?
This is where showing the source of the message is important. Preachers should encourage their congregation to bring their Bibles to church. Preachers should also spend a lot of time showing their congregation the source of what they’re teaching.
Chapter by chapter, verse by verse. This way, the congregation isn’t thinking “the preacher said…”, but instead thinking “the Bible said…”. There’s a big difference between the two.
Why we should share our weakness
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1: 8, KJV).
One more way to remove the expectation to be perfect is by sharing our flaws and mistakes.
Perfection is the goal, but only God is perfect. Holding anyone else to that standard is a problem. We should remember that Jesus is the perfect example. No other character in the Bible comes close. Not David, not Peter, not Paul or any other.
Being a Christian is a pilgrimage. We’re learning as we go. We’re all fighting battles against our flesh until we leave this mortal body.
This encourages new believers as they get to see that it is, in fact, a journey. One in which we only get stronger in the faith as we continue to pray and fellowship with each other.
When we share our weaknesses, we show that we also need help and encouragement. The response of a faithful fellowship would be to encourage us in prayer and godly advice.
The preacher and the congregation are all on their pilgrimage. We’ll do well by sharing our weaknesses to encourage each other on this long and difficult journey.
My weakness: Overcoming lust
“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28 KJV).
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (1 John 2:16-17, KJV).
As a single young man, lust was always a problem. This isn’t the way a Christian should live, it is a sin and it can prevent me from living a holy life.
To overcome lust, here are the steps I’ve taken so far:
- Prayer: There is power in prayer. We’re not expected to complete the pilgrimage on our own. God is with us. We shouldn’t forget to call on him for everything. The first thing I did was pray about it.
- Understand the feeling: Fighting an unknown enemy is difficult. To fight an unwanted emotion, I had to understand it. Where is it coming from? Why is it happening? In my case, I learned that lust was happening because I valued physical appearance more than godliness. My idea of beauty was only physical. This made me admire physical attributes while I ignored everything else.
- Changing my priorities: The Bible’s definition of beauty is virtuous and godly first, everything else is secondary (Prov 31:10–31). Once I understood that lust was a result of valuing physical appearance over godliness, I had to change my definition of beauty to what the Bible says. When the lustful feelings come, I’d ask myself if the feeling was a result of the person’s godliness or physical appearance. Godliness cannot lead to lust. Redefining beauty and placing godliness above everything else became the solution.
There will be more battles to fight. The devil has a way of throwing new challenges at us at every stage of the journey. But the more we share our weaknesses, the more we encourage others. It will also help us admit that we’re not perfect yet. But we’re working towards perfection until the day we leave this imperfect body.
