Could you actually thrive if you embraced your weaknesses and limitations? After all, talking about your weaknesses seems to come up practically everywhere: job interviews, dates, in marriage, your own family, team-building exercises, Bible study groups, friendships…
Perhaps, like me, you feel like curling up in a ball. Eek! Can’t we talk about something else? Something that doesn’t make me feel like hiding?
Beloved, it doesn’t have to be that way.
If you want to learn how to live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved, you need to own your weaknesses and limitations. When you learn how to embrace what you’re not strong at, you can start being more intentional with your time and energy.
You ready to learn more? Let’s dig in!
Basically, a weakness is something you’re NOT strong at and a limitation is a lack of capacity.
As Christians, we talk A LOT about our weaknesses – all the ways we fall short in walking and loving like Jesus.
I’m definitely not disputing this – we need Jesus every single day!
This post is NOT about embracing sinful tendencies and desires.
Instead, we’re embracing the reality that we’re simply unable to do #allthethings perfectly because we’re not Super Humans but we ARE loved by a super God.
That’s it!
A few practical limitations or weaknesses you have may include:
These tendencies don’t define whether your character.
In fact, they’re kind of like shoes – neutral and a tool in your arsenal to conquer your day. (Learn more about this idea here.)
Instead of fighting your limitations, you can embrace them so you can become more intentional with your time and energy.
So what could that look like?
Embracing our limitations and weaknesses can be as simple as this:
I struggle with X, so what can I do to be more intentional with my time and energy?
Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats: How to start owning your limitations and weaknesses
By simply naming your struggle, you’re taking a HUGE step toward becoming more intentional with your time and energy.
For instance, if you tend to be a daydreamer and forget where you put your keys EVERY SINGLE DAY, forgetfulness may be one of your weaknesses. You’re not a failure. You just need to learn to work with that weaknesses so you’re not frazzled and frustrated most days because you can’t find your dang keys!
So how on earth does this help YOU live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved?
Beloved, lean in, you need to know this.
You were never meant to do it all on your own. You were always intended to partner with God each day.
We can learn a lot about embracing our weaknesses and limitations from the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”
This persistent struggle drove him straight into God’s arms, where he learned that God’s grace was enough and that God could work powerfully through that same weakness!
As a result, Paul embraced his weaknesses and grew closer to Christ! Read it in Paul’s words below.
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 MSG, bolding mine
When you accept that you have weaknesses and limitations, you learn to turn to them for your source of strength.
Check out What Does the Bible Say About Using Your Strengths? for more about this idea!
When you embrace your very real weaknesses and limitations, you realize how much you DON’T know and CAN’T do on your own. You desperately need God and others to truly thrive!
As Jesus said:
4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:4 ESV
Like a child, you can embrace that you’ve got a lot to learn and growing to do. And that’s okay.
When you honestly look at what you’re struggling with, you can start taking positive proactive action to grow within the limitations you have.
Let’s say that you accept that you’re inherently a big-picture person and day-to-day details can’t seem to stick in your brain. Rather than beating yourself up for losing track of everything on your schedule, you could delegate the “remembering” to other tools – a planner, digital calendar, to-do list, notepad, others (as appropriate), and so forth.
Check out 4 Practical Ways to Embrace Your Weaknesses and Limitations for more ideas!
When you wholeheartedly embrace your weaknesses and limitations, you start growing in empathy, compassion, and wisdom. (Quite a bunch of rewards packed into one, huh?)
Since you know what it’s like to struggle in certain areas of your life, you can better empathize with others who are struggling, too. You can more graciously offer compassion, because – hey – nobody but Jesus is perfect!
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.[h] Never be wise in your own sight.
Romans 12:15 -16ESV
One of the most fun outcomes of embracing your weaknesses and limitations is being able to celebrate what others rock at!
When you’re embracing the potential God has given you, you can admire and respect the skills, talents and joy others find in using their strengths.
You can cheer them on without falling into the comparison trap (Why do THEY get to be great at that and I’m not?) because you understand that each of us has a vital role to play in Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).
Heck – you could even ask them for ideas or help with that THING you’re not so hot at!
When you get real about your weaknesses and limitations, you can stop giving so much of your time and energy to black holes. They just suck up your thoughts and energy and leave NOTHING for you!
For instance, perhaps you can’t eliminate all the frustrating parts of running your household, but you can get clarity on what’s making it hard.
Maybe you realize you need more structure and that scrounging up 3 meals a day with no plan is driving you crazy. Rather than wasting your time being irritated each day, you could try meal planning or delegating meal prep to someone else in your family, etc.
Or perhaps you realize that your family has TOO MUCH going on and needs more whitespace in your schedule so everyone can decompress. Rather than feeling so dang frazzled every Monday, you could try weekly planning (prioritize cup-filling), do a monthly review to better prepare your family for the future, giving yourself a spiritual pause, or even deciding what’s enough for right now.
When you embrace your weaknesses and limitations, you’re freed to start proactively dealing with the day-to-day things that keep sucking up your time and energy – and aren’t filling your cup.
Grab the FREE Embrace Your Potential Playbook to learn more about your God-gifted personality and get some practical tips to start living intentionally TODAY with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.
Beloved, I hope it’s clear that rather than being soul-sucking, embracing your weaknesses and limitations gives you SO many benefits. As a brief recap, here’s what you gain:
When you make a conscious effort to own your limitations, you reap the rewards of a more intentional, passionate, and purposeful life.
So, sweet friend, be brave and start embracing your weaknesses and limitations. You’ll find so much good stuff on the other side!
After all, you can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.
P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.
Cortney is a Christian life coach and recovering over-achiever who is passionate about helping Christian women embrace who God created them to be so they can confidently step into any season of life with passion, purpose, and peace. She’s also an ENFJ, MBTI® coach, M. Ed in College Student Development, Pilates and Yoga teacher, wife, mama, and entrepreneur. In her pre-kid life, she coordinated programs for, coached, funded, and provided leadership training for more than 60+ student organizations and 100s of university students for 7+ years. (Helping people highlight their inner awesomeness and reach their goals is her jam!)
More importantly, she’s God’s beloved.
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