l'll hold your weaknesses. Will you hold mine?

I am so surprised at how often people (friends, family members, acquaintances) expect perfection out of themselves and also the people around them. Church too. A perfect Christian, whether a church member or leader seems to me the opposite presentation of our actual needs in Church every week. We come as we are, broken, sinful and needing healing. This is something that happens in a meaningful way during conversion, and it also needs to happen every week. Why every week?

We are experiencing life every week. Life with its approval of perfection and its disapproval of failure. It can create a toughness, a facade, demanding only perfection be allowed to show. In reality though we are dealing with more painful things than can be handled perfectly.  I like this quote from "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse."

Satan has erected fortresses in people's lives through incest, child abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism and countless other addictions, spiritual abuse, any way he can deceive, rob and enslave. But instead of tearing down these fortresses with truth and grace, the church has fought about the color of the hymnals. We have taught classes, built buildings, served on committees, and gone to seminars so that our leaders are spiritually gratified. We have spent our spiritual energy bribing our children to go to church and memorize Bible verse by promising perfect attendance pins and trophies. We have taken each others' spiritual inventories to make sure people aren't going to movies, wearing makeup or chewing gum in church. We have taught people prayer recipes and formulas. If this is really our job, we are truly spiritually overdressed.

I find it interesting that we are all of us going through difficult times whether its a lack spiritual, financial, emotional resources or dealing with conflict within our support systems, we are constantly being taxed. This reveals to me that within the Body of Christ, we have profound opportunities of ministry, to each other. 

I grew up the daughter of a passionate man, with a vision for creating a spiritually healthy place for people who long for an authentic relationship with God. My Dad reminds me of this verse 

"Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command." 1st Chronicles 12:32.

My Dad is someone who understood the times and knew what needed to be done. I tease my Dad that he has the vision and leadership for great things, its the nuts and bolts of making it happen that escape him. :) My point is that that he knew what needed to be done for the future of the church and he was able to "pass the torch" of that vision to his children, and also to their spouses (and if you know in-law situations, you know this was a bigger challenge than the first).

However I am not unaware that my Dad also has weaknesses. Being his child I have had a front row seat and heard the criticisms leveled at him regarding his weaknesses and then heard them used to discredit his ability to lead. These experiences were invaluable to me. It taught me several things...

1. Don't assume that I know the whole story - being willing to listen and accept both sides of the story as truth. (This helped us to reconcile a relationship with family over the summer that I thought would never find healing).
2. Using a weakness against someone is part of the pursuit of perfection I see most often in the workplace.( I have actually been offered the opportunity to advance if I would take advantage of a friend and colleague with less experience, less ability and less seniority than I. I wasn't interested and left that job eventually).
3. Working as a team has always brought me more success than working on my own. (I have worked with people with both great strengths and significant weaknesses).
4. Hold a person's weaknesses gently. (I have only seen significant growth occur regarding a person's weaknesses when it is in the shelter of a securely attached relationship).