My Life, My Weakness

“Dear Lord, reveal who I am, the inner workings of my heart to me. Introduce me to me.”

That has been my prayer for the past couple of months, and was most emphasized about three (3) weeks ago. Praying the above did not mean I was lost or didn’t know who I was , no, I am confident in who I am, but also aware that there are areas in my life I am blinded to or unaware of; deep secret areas that I’d rather leave alone.

There are things about my life that I know I need major help in, like impatience; I understand this is a huge stumbling block for me and I am working with God to have this fixed. The self revelation I speak of refers to areas I think or “know” I’ve gotten under control, areas I think major improvements have been made or areas I don’t realize I need help in, for instance humility… I just realized that I am not as humble as I thought I was, I didn’t think humility was my greatest asset, but I didn’t realize I lacked so much of it.

In my quest to maintain a deep and sincere relationship with my Father, I decided to trust Him with all my weaknesses - He has deposited strengths in me, but I know that if these “foxes” whether big or small are not destroyed or maneuvered, they will spoil or eventually eradicate my vine yard, and alas! Though I have strengths, it will be as though I have none.

Most times I pray that God reveal Himself to me, and rightly so, if I am His, I should know Him, but how about knowing myself first. Can I repent of a sin I am ignorant of? Can I be better if there is no room for improvement? Can I receive if I do not ask? Can I ask if I do not know I lack? It all boils down to awareness, Knowledge, insight of who I am.

My journey to spiritual self revelation was unpleasant initially because it made me realize that I am not who I think I am, and who I really am has a long way to go to get to who I think I am and an even longer way to who I need to be. The incentive is that as the journey started I handed “me” over to God and became clay in His hands allowing Him to mold me into His desired shape. After I have been reshaped, I will pass through fire to be made durable then become a vessel unto honor fit for the master’s use. Hurray! I will be fast forwarded to where I need to be, where God wants me to be.

I had to face and understand the truth: It is only in Christ that I am worthy of acceptance. Basically without the blood of Jesus and His righteousness that I am clothe in I am unclean, filthy and an eyesore. It was hard to digest, because I thought I was really almost there (yeah yeah who did I think I was anyway?) well I was rudely awakened. But even with Christ, the old man rears its ugly head more often than I’d like him to and if I don’t act, he’d take over and completely destroy me.

Romans 7:15 – 25 best describes how I feel: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”

Sometimes we go to God with problems we are aware of, and other times we ask God to deliver us from problems we may not be able to see, in the same light, we can go to our father with issues we have with our attitudes, we might not like the fact that we lie or steal and we would like Him to help us. The fact that we have identified one or two negative traits does not mean those are the only ones there, we should constantly go to God and ask that He reveal the other areas of our lives that need help to us so that we can seek help.

Self examination is a better way to describe it, and can only be valid if God exposes you to yourself. In the IT world, or any design oriented world, testing is very important; one rule is that you cannot test your work alone because you will most likely overlook minor or major errors. The only accurate tester in this sense is God. He is the only one that can tell you your inadequacies, and He can do this because He created you, He knows how you should be and can tell you why you are not there yet by pin pointing the areas you need improvement.

To be continued