I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  ~Psalm 139:14

I have a great friend that I love to spend time with. He is sensitive, intelligent, considerate and thoughtful. He is wise, spiritual and prayerful. When you talk with him, he focuses completely on you, like you are the only person in the world.  

But, I have a problem with him.

He is so considerate, so kind and so other-focused that he is always late for appointments and can’t keep a schedule (if he even has one). While he chats with his barber or the Starbucks barista, everyone else waits and waits and waits. If you invite him over for dinner, tell him to arrive a half hour earlier than all your other guests and you might get started on time, if you’re lucky.

In this way, what I admire most about my friend also drives me crazy. 

I’ve heard it said “Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness.” In fact, in counseling I’ve often said that to people.  

So, you know your quick sarcastic wit and articulate tongue? It sometimes gets you into trouble, doesn’t it?

Or, your tendency to be deliberate, careful and introspective? In the past you’ve missed a few opportunities, haven’t you? 

How about your incredible gift of spending quality time with people? You typically run behind schedule, don’t you?

Are you efficient, productive and task oriented? I bet people sometimes feel marginalized or dismissed by your focus.

We all have strengths. God has wired each of us differently. But, there’s a great benefit in realizing that your greatest strength also has a down side, a weakness. It tempers us, keeps us humble and fosters teachability. Sometimes we become intolerant of others. We see the world only through a lens of our own strengths and experience. When this happens, we hold others up to the artificial standard of our own strength- they fail, and we become judgmental. We are judge, jury and chief executioner of other people’s weaknesses. People sense our air of superiority and relationships suffer. In that way, the very thing that God designed as our strength becomes a tool of the enemy to limit our ministry effectiveness.

So, celebrate your strengths, but be careful. Others are putting up with you too. Realizing that you are a work in progress helps you to extend that same grace to others that they are undoubtedly already extending to you.