Let's Talk About Your Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, For Christ's Sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God uses us righteously because of our weaknesses.

This is not an easy one for me because we cannot talk about your weakness until I talk about mine. I need to be transparent about myself in order to communicate to you how important it is to understand and acknowledge your weaknesses.


We can all take some comfort in knowing that sin and weaknesses are two completely different things, so when we talk about our weaknesses, we’re not talking about sin. We know God uses us in spite of our sin, but He uses us righteously because of our weaknesses.

There are those who say you shouldn’t waste your time on trying to improve your weaknesses. They say your time is better spent on strengthening strengths. When you listen to their reasoning, much of it makes a lot of sense. After all, we don’t want to be poor stewards of our time, do we? If the energy to improve to the next level of our weakness takes twice the energy and resources that it takes to improve to the next level of our strengths, why would we ever work on our weakness? Should ever we work on them? Hold that thought while I share three of my weaknesses: 

1. I am very weak at spelling, punctuation, and grammar. 
2. My memory of names is incredibly poor, to the extent of daily and weekly embarrassment. 
3.  High school is my highest formal education. 

Boasting in My Weaknesses

 In 2nd Corinthians 11:30, Paul tells us that he is willing to boast about his weakness. If you were me, would you boast about my weaknesses? Probably not. I am not sure I want to either, but I will try my best to boast, but to boast in the Lord.

 At the end of my last seminar, I asked folks to write me personally with any criticism and/or encouragements. I received both. One participant who was an experienced educator, self-described editor and passionate proof reader wrote to me with a quite long list of errors in my PowerPoint slide presentation. They were not evident to people who share my first weakness, but they were there nevertheless. 


I was sufficiently embarrassed, but I corrected every one of them that day, emailed her a copy of the corrections, and thanked her for her help. Because the pastor of that church was also an educator at a local college, you would think that this weakness of mine would destroy the reputation of Christ in me and render me useless in this particular venue. After all, Christ would not have had errors in His PowerPoint! It is only because of God’s grace that this did not happen. In fact, the pastor had the following to say about the seminar:

"I sincerely want to thank you for coming to Hillsboro (Ohio) last weekend. I would agree with others that you do sincerely possess a plethora of leadership gifts and a sense of how to communicate those gifts in ways that are encouraging and edifying to the individuals in the group as well as convicting and challenging to those (of us) who need to be challenged to change. I am also able to say with confidence that the principles you presented are not just theoretical or academic in nature. I have seen firsthand how you personally have applied and effectively put into practice those very same principles. In a day when charlatans seem to be multiplying by the truckloads, it is indeed refreshing to encounter someone who not only talks a good game, but lives it as well. Our leadership team is already making plans to implement the principles they learned from your visit."

Instead of scoffing at my errors, the pastor gave testimony of how God used me in his life and in the life of his church. Similarly, after my last E-leadership distribution, I received encouragement from a pastor who is a very gifted writer. He overlooked my form and encouraged me with his affirmation of the content.

God used my weakness to give American businessmen
a face in Sierra Leone.

In my first trip to Africa, I taught leadership at the Evangelical College of Theology in Sierra Leone, and, despite my weaknesses, at the end of the trip, I was told that I had transformed the students’ lives. How did God transform their lives? By providing me, an American businessman, to teach at their college. According to the students, there were few, if any, good businessmen left in Sierra Leone due to political unrest. The Sierra Leonean students could not imagine any difference with this American and were skeptical, if not totally benign to me, at first. But God did His work with the content of the teaching, which gave them a reason to think differently about the potential of their own business people. He erased their “prejudice.”

 Rising from the Foundation of Your Weaknesses

So how is God using me? From the foundation of my weaknesses, God is raising me up. From my writing weakness, he calls me to write; from a business occupation, He called me to teach; from the weakness of my education, He allows me to impact the lives of those who are educated. Therefore, I will praise God for my weakness, for “when I am weak, I am strong.”

 Food for Thought

You now know my weaknesses. What do you think? How much time should I spend on my weaknesses?

Is it now possible to talk about yours?


Photos courtesy of Jon Clegg and Seabamirum.