So, what are your strengths and weaknesses?
In my early twenties, during my studies at seminary, I was the director of a summer camp up in the Muskokas. Each spring, young people would apply to work as camp counsellors, and for many of them, the application process was one of their first opportunities to sit in a job interview.
It was always interesting to hear their answers to the various interview questions. The interviewing team that the Camp board had appointed had a fairly standard list of questions, and often the interviewers would ask that inevitable and ubiquitous interview question.
So, what are your strengths and weaknesses?
Since those days, I have been on a number of hiring boards, and I have heard a wide range of answers to such questions. In fact, I no longer think that it is a particularly good question to ask, in a job interview, in light of the almost humourous number of ways that people try to answer this question about their personal strengths and weaknesses in ways that attempt to present – and even twist – their supposed weaknesses into reasons why they should be considered as ideal candidates and employees.
“My biggest weakness? Well, probably that I work too hard, and put too much of myself into whatever job I have.???
“My biggest weakness is that I set really high standards for myself which makes everyone else around me feel uncomfortable.???
“My biggest weakness is that I tend to take on more responsibility than average workers, which sometimes makes my supervisors feel a bit insecure.???
In one way or another, both in job interviews and in life in general, we all tend to do this – we try to reframe our weaknesses, our failings, our mistakes, in ways that we try to convince ourselves, and everyone around us, that we are not quite as imperfect as we actually are.
But sadly, this lack of honest self-appraisal, this challenge of being openly self-critical about our weaknesses undermines a real sense of self-awareness.
And without some degree of honest self-awareness, transformation and change, in human life, are virtually impossible.
So how self-aware are we, really? How well do we know ourselves? Are we truly conscious of what motivates and inspires us, what demoralizes and disappoints us, what our strengths and weaknesses actually are, what contributes to our sense of joy and confidence, and what undermines our sense of self-worth?
Do we really know where we need to be careful, due to our weaknesses, our anxieties, our insecurities, our fears — and where we can relax?
Are we aware of how our actions impact and influence others, or are we oblivious to the effects that we have on those around us?
Are we flippant and casual about our weaknesses, while harsh and judgemental towards other people’s weaknesses?
And can we cultivate the discipline to know our imperfections, our insecurities, our “edges??? and our “foibles??? in order to strive towards a truer, more honest, and even more critical degree of self-awareness?
None of us are naturally good at any of this. Most of us stumble through our lives, sometimes lurching from one crisis to another, with very little time given to reflecting on the part that we play in the difficulties and challenges that we encounter.
But when we take the time to look within, we are – finally – ready to be changed, to be transformed, to grow.
Today’s suggested reading from Romans 7 presents us with words written by a man wrestling with his own awareness of his weaknesses. And his words can offer all of us some fairly profound insights into the nature of the human condition.
“I do not understand my own actions,??? Paul begins. But his subsequent words reveal
that he actually had a fairly good understanding of his own actions – but that he is not particularly impressed by what he sees.
“For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.??? This realization leads him to recognize that the place of moral rules, the purpose of the law, is to address and give him the guidance that he needs in light of his propensity towards doing the wrong thing. After all, if he always did the right thing, regardless of the circumstance or situation that he was in, there would be no need for morals, for guidelines, for rules, for laws. But those rules were in place precisely because of his natural, inner tendency to do the wrong things. As he himself wrote, “Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me; that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.???
And then, he offers words that seem quite hopeless, even if they are self-aware. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.???
Quite a dilemma. He knew that there was good that he wanted to do, but he had also come to realize that there was a deep conflict within him. He was not quite as good as he could be, as he would like to be, or as he should be, which created a dissonance within him – try as he might to do the right thing, he always seemed to mess it up.
And what was deeply demoralizing, for him, was that it was hard to overcome that tendency since the brokenness was not because of some external, powerful force acting upon him. Rather, it was the brokenness within himself that was keeping him back from who he wanted to be.
To strive towards self-awareness can make us feel great when it reveals our gifts, our potential, our abilities, our natural strengths. But what Paul seemed to be wrestling with was that a true and honest appraisal of who he was and what motivated his actions was not all that reassuring or comforting. He was broken, within.
Much has been made, over the course of Christian history, about the idea of our fundamental inner brokenness. Sometimes, we have referred to this awareness as “original sin??? or even more ominously, our “total depravity.??? But others have come along and suggested that such negative perspectives only serve to fuel Christian self-hatred and self-loathing. Don’t we need to emphasize our goodness rather than our sinfulness? Wouldn’t we all be better off if we stopped seeing ourselves, and others, as sinful and broken, and instead just saw ourselves and others as good and pure and beautiful and wonderful?
Well, this seemingly more positive view of the human condition sounds good, but it might not be all that accurate, or honest, or helpful.
After all, there is fairly decent evidence – in our world, and even in our own lives – that we do not tend to be quite as good as we could be, and that we would be if we were strong enough, and that we really should be. Instead, each and every one of us faces the same dilemma that Paul articulated so long ago. We do not always do what we want to do. We do not always do what we should do. Our thoughts, our emotions, our attitudes are not always as pure, as holy, as compassionate, as forgiving, as peaceful, as kind as we know that we could, would and should be. Our actions – and sometimes, our inaction – remind us that we have misplaced and mistaken and misleading priorities, and we could, world, and should do better.
And if we take any of this seriously – as Paul did – we eventually realize that we are in a bit of a difficult spot. What we could do, we haven’t; what we would do, if we were stronger and better than we are, we are not doing; and what we should do – as humans, as individuals, as communities, as Christians, as the church – well, it all leaves a lot to be desired.
Paul speaks of this inner conflict as a war within himself, in which he is left in a state of wretchedness. “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death????
Quite a level of self-awareness.
But Paul;s realization did not leave him with a sense of despair, of wretchedness, of guilt or of futility. Rather, he realized that what he could not do for himself, what he would not be able to achieve for himself, what he should be able to accomplish but was not able to do – had already been done for him.
For Paul, all hope was not lost. Rather, this realization of his inner turmoil was at the heart of his understanding of the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!??? he declared .
And in that proclamation lay his hope, and ours.
Because self-awareness, for Paul, was not a reason for despair. Paul had tried to be good, but knew that he was broken; Paul had tried to be faithful; Paul had tried to accomplish, for himself, what was necessary to make himself right with God. And he had failed.
But he had discovered that what Christ had done was for him; what Christ offered him was the very thing that he could not do for himself; and all that he needed to do was to realize that this gift of grace, this supreme gift of love, was freely offered to him and to all the world. He was loved, saved, cherished, forgiven, restored, reconciled, renewed and embraced – in spite of that inner turmoil. It was all grace.
Today’s reading ends in the last verses of Romans 7. But it is good for us to remember that Paul did not write these words in chapter and verse delineations. Rather, the conclusion to his reflections led him to a deepened awareness that – in words that fall in the opening verses of chapter 8, which immediately follow today’s reading – “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.???
In other words, the inner war might go on – we are human after all – but the good news is that we are loved beyond our brokenness; we are held in the hand of grace, beyond our failings and mistakes; we are saved by God’s grace, not by our own goodness.
Which means that we actually have a fairly decent answer to that old question.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Well, my weakness is that I am not quite as good as I could be, or as I would like to be, or as I should be. But that’s ok. Because my greatest strength is that there is One who is as good as I could be, and would like to be, and should be – and he has claimed me as his own.
Which is actually quite exciting, since there is One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, and to that great and wondrous God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.
