An ironic thing about us is that we struggle with the thought of being inadequate. Weakness and failure is something that we tend to avoid even if we don't know why. It hurts us and we do our best to hide it, but what does the Bible tell us about our weaknesses?
First and foremost, everyone has them. We watch movies and follow celebrities and fall in love with them because they seem perfect and flawless, and we're addicted to that. One thing we need to understand about this urge to pursue perfection is that it's in us because God put it there. God causes us to strive for perfection because He wants us to pursue Him—the only perfect being in all reality.
But in this desire for perfection, what usually happens is we try to cover up our failures and then appear perfect instead. As a result, we then often deceive ourselves and attempt to deceive others around us.
Sadly, we see this a lot even amongst Christians. Our culture has generalised Christianity as the pursuit of perfection instead of the embracing of the perfection we now have through Jesus Christ. And while God wants us to pursue Christ-likeness and thus perfection, let us never fall into the deception that we're already there. No one is ever already there.
1 Timothy 6:11 says, "But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness" (ESV). Note how Paul urges young Timothy—a man of God—to pursue righteousness; he knew he wasn't completely there yet. We all have fallen and still fall short of the glory of God, and when we pretend that we don't, we stop moving towards the sanctification of Christ.
The past few weeks, I've realised that for many years now I have been hiding my tendency to bend towards anxiety. But one morning as I was praying and worshipping God, I realised just how anxious I can sometimes be when it comes to work, ministry and even finances. I had to come to God saying, "Lord, I'm such a terrible worry wart. I need your grace to fix this area of my life. I can't do it without you."
Why can't we just admit that, at some level, we're still sinful, prideful, arrogant, stubborn, struggling and even failing in some areas? Because it hurts us, I know; but when we get past the pain and allow God to work in our weakness, we actually grow spiritually more and more.
1 Corinthians 12:9 tells us, "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (ESV).
