What Is Your Greatest Strength?
What is your greatest strength?
This question can be challenging to answer and I wonder if you fall into either of the two extremes. Many people will struggle to answer this question because they see themselves as having no use or worth. They are, even in their own words, good for nothing. Theologically speaking, this is not true as everyone has some gift or talent or grace given to them by God that can be of use in serving God. On the other extreme are those who can do nothing but brag about how awesome they are. This group may be well served by a reminder that it is God who created them.
To be fair, I have asked this question about myself. And waxing poetical about others and the might-bes and the may-bes does not answer the question- it avoids it.
What is my greatest strength? I am not sure I know. Truly. There are lots of things at which I do well, but are those really my strengths? I know how to do certain things because of the opportunities and circumstances of my life. Even when I actively sought out how to do a certain skill, there was usually a reason why. I know how to bake because I had a crush on a boy. I learned to crochet so that I could make things to gift to other people. I know how to put out a fire with baking soda because things were on fire that should not have been on fire. I know how to type because of a required class in second grade (and a refresher one summer when I was desperately seeking entertainment).
This may be one of those questions that I cannot answer for myself. It would take the community around me to answer it, to see what I cannot see. Do I look often enough for the imago dei when I glance in the mirror? Is my vanity too great for that? Does my greatest strength change from circumstance to circumstance or is it steady and unchanging? Is God’s love my greatest strength? Or is that everyone’s greatest strength, if only they’d respond to it?
Per usual, more questions than answers. But I’m hopeful that this is a question that the more I explore it, the more I’ll know how much God has given me.
Okay, maybe the real answer to this question is that I am an optimist. No matter how dark things get, I tend to look on the sunny side of life. I’m no Pollyanna, there is grief and woe and sadness, but because I can make peace (with God’s help) of almost any situation, there is a hope for a resurrection of some sort within it. In death, it’s the big resurrection with Christ. In a disappointment, it’s a hope that I’ll do better the next time or I’ll learn something valuable along the way. Other times the pros and cons list is very self-serving, but just because the outcome of a situation is something I did not want does not mean that God is not working in it and in me to make something wonderful and new. This hope is something I can share with others and something that God has used to serve others. It also represents one of my greatest flaws, but God works through those too. Because it is God who is mighty, not me.
