What are Your Strengths?

It all started with a simple test: What are Your Strengths? It was the key I needed to put in perspective an understanding of everything that I’ve been processing with the Lord in this season. As I was answering the questions, I quickly started to see how I’ve been more in tune with my personal weaknesses rather than strengths, even though I knew better. I hardly knew my strengths. It was refreshing to focus on them for once! I’ve tried to apply this principle in the past, but I realized that I’ve just fallen back into old habits and patterns.

It wasn’t long ago that I was reading Chris Vallotton’s book Spirit Wars. There was one chapter where he went deep into the work of the cross. I’ve heard many messages on this subject as a Christian, but this was a fresh perspective that I had never heard before. The cross clicked in my Spirit in a new way. The biggest revelation for me was about my past being a graveyard. I saw it in my mind for the first time. Here, all the past sins and mistakes that I’ve made were buried in the graveyard of my old nature before I truly met Christ for the first time, or before I was baptized in His Spirit, being made new. The best way to describe my experience was a rebirth. Despite being made new, I was constantly haunted by my dead self, and the demons of my past.

One night I realized that even my most recent sin and humiliation was too in that graveyard! It started in a conversation that I was having with a close friend where I was placed back into the middle of that circumstance. Old feelings that I had during that time started to resurface. I quickly became overwhelmed by the pain I was going through at that time, and the deep humiliation. My confidence plummeted, and my night took a turn, needing to go home and wanting to be by myself. I thought I needed more inner healing, or that I needed a fresh revelation of a bad root that was still stuck deep inside that brought about the mistake. On my drive home, I received the revelation, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I saw myself digging in a grave, and as I was digging, the death I experienced of that time in my life became real again, fully accompanied by all the old feelings and emotions that accompanied it. I was literally digging myself back into that grave, where heaps of the pain, humiliation, and guilt started to bury me alive. After seeing it, I saw how ridiculous it was! I stopped digging and moved forward into the victory I’ve been walking in since that time in my life!!

So, I’m not against inner healing or restoration at all, but I believe we can very easily get ourselves stuck in the graveyard of our past in an attempt to walk in new victory. Truth is, the cross took care of our past sin, before and after our salvation, and I trust Jesus to bring up healing where and when needed in his perfect timing. I’m moving on in victory with my new nature that he has given me, that is a slave to righteousness. Sinning now goes against the tide, so I’m turning my canoe around to flow in the rest of my relationship with God, carrying me forth into a world of fresh beginnings and the newness of life! When I mess up, it’s time to move forward in repentance and learn from my mistakes. This is the necessary transfer to the graveyard. So I’m keeping out of the graveyard of my past so I can finally move forward! I’m laying down the shovel in an attempt to find healing in that graveyard. No wonder I was feeling haunted! Graveyards are no place to dwell.

Another revelation: With a lifestyle of digging came false humility. My definition of false humility recently broadened. Bill Johnson once said, “Humility is not humiliation. Humility has strength to it.” He’s so right. The humility I knew was walking under the shame of my past. It was shame that kept me “humble” all these years. Truly, that constant underlying shame and guilt kept my self-esteem and confidence beat up, focusing me in on my weaknesses, but somehow this became twisted in my mind as good. Strangely, I didn’t struggle with this false humility as a non-believer. I walked in a greater level of the feeling of freedom and just learning from my mistakes when I rejected God altogether. It wasn’t until I became a Christian that I started to struggle with the shame and guilt again. I now understand that all true confidence, assurance, and self-worth come through relationship with Abba God, and that He wants me to be set completely free from shame and condemnation altogether! He is not the creator of shame and guilt, but instead He created confidence and self-worth, for He is the maker of everything that is good. He wants me to walk in confidence by the power of His Spirit living within me. He wants me to walk in the strengths of the identity that He has placed inside of me. True confidence is grounded in the revelation of being sons of God, walking in the authority of Jesus Christ. More importantly, our confidence is grounded in our sole dependency on Him, knowing what a good Father He truly is.

So now I come back full circle to personal strengths. I feel a new freedom to walk in the focus of my strengths, instead of my weaknesses, as I now look forward to what my future holds. I just couldn’t get a grip on living in the present and for the future while strapped to my past. My weaknesses become irrelevant as I discover the strength of the identity put within me. Focusing on my strengths will develop and grow my inner confidence, bringing forth the destiny and call that God has placed over my life! I dream to impact the world in a radical way, bringing healing to the brokenhearted and declaring freedom to the prisoners! I, for the first time, actually feel like a new person! Thank you Jesus for the joy, confidence, refreshed hope, and the new life that comes with power of the true work that you accomplished on the cross!! Jesus is the only way for me..

Kels