I recently read Reggie McNeal's The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church. There is a lot of good stuff in this book. One topic he touched on, which I am very passionate about, was developing our strengths instead of being obsessed with our weaknesses.
As a component of a spiritual preparation architecture, strengths include both strengths awareness and strengths building. The focus on strengths as a preparation for the future runs counter-intuitive to what most Americans think. Most of us believe the best way for us to improve is to engage in some form of self-remediation (lose weight, stop a bad habit).
Our culture focuses on weaknesses. If a child comes home from school with a report card of four A’s and on C, what does the discussion typically center on? Often we tell children they need to spend more time on the things that come the hardest to them, leaving underdeveloped those talents that are most natural. We do this because we have been taught that only what comes hard counts. So we wind up helping people spend lots of time trying to develop talents they don’t have. We also try to “balance” people out. Balance is a myth. I do not know a single balanced leader. In fact, leaders by definition are imbalanced people. They are “out of round” in the areas of their passion, their giftedness, and their vision.
Your best shot at making your best contribution is for you to get better at what you are already good at. God called you, not in spite of who you are (this is such a prevalent view) but precisely because of who you are. Your strengths (the development of your talent with experience) provide a clue to your calling and ministry assignment. When we ignore them we degrade the work of God in us. When we focus only on fixing weaknesses we tell God his gifts are not an important part of who we are. Our efforts at mending ourselves are a form of idolatry, another evidence of our trying to be God. Only he has all the talent. I am talking about talent, not character, which we should obviously strive to improve. (111-112)
Clearly, we should not ignore our weaknesses, and McNeal goes on to say more about this. However, our focus should be on our strengths and on appreciating other people's strengths.
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