From Self-Reliance to Sharing Gifts

As I've blogged about before, my faith is incredibly important to me. Today's post starts with a Bible verse, but then expands into a life lesson that I hope to live by for this year, and that I hope proves valuable for some of you reading this blog!

I was doing my daily Bible study yesterday, New Year's Day, in order to try to keep true to my #OneWord2014 of "Simplicity"; in this case, getting back to the basics of what's important (i.e. my faith). My daily devotional led me to the book of Romans (the letter from Paul to the new Christians in Rome, which talks all about the basic building blocks of Christianity, which at the time of writing was a brand new faith), Chapter 12. I'll include the text that inspired me below:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. (Romans 12:3-6, NIV)

As I've blogged about in the past couple of days, 2013 was a wake-up call for me. As I've been reflecting, I realized that I have formed the habit of holding myself to impossibly high standards, and then trying to accomplish EVERYTHING by myself. I try to put forth this facade of perfectionism, of knowing everything, of confidence and self-esteem, honestly in hopes that people will perceive me that way (and thus I'll start trusting myself in those areas... fake it 'til you make it, right?). But, over the past week, I've been realizing what a MESS holding myself to this high standard has made me. By expecting perfection of myself (something NO ONE ELSE does), and by expecting that I'll be able to handle everything on my own all the time, I've undermined my own confidence and certainty. I've been building this beautiful outer shell, but not dedicating any time to working on building a strong foundation. And because of this, the outer shell I've built is starting to crack.

I share this with all of you in the spirit of honesty, of freedom from deceit or guile that my #OneWord2014 (simplicity) signifies. I hope that by identifying the areas in my life where I'm hiding, where I'm being dishonest, where I'm not being vulnerable, I can completely break away my false outer shell and let my inner light shine.

Here's where the Bible verse above comes back in: I want to think of myself in sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given me. I want to be honest with myself about what I can truly accomplish on my own, and know when to seek help for all the rest. I want to know when to be confident in my own skills, and when to go to God for reassurance about my weaknesses. Or, in the words of another, simpler (because in 2014 I love simplicity!) translation, "...I warn everyone among you not to estimate and think of himself more highly than he ought [not to have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance], but to rate his ability with sober judgment, each according to the degree of faith apportioned by God to him." (Romans 12:3, Amplified Bible) I want to be clear and open and honest about where I'm failing and falling. I want to be truthful with myself that, while I am learning and while I am capable, I CANNOT do everything by myself. Because of my Christian faith, I want to go to God for the strength to learn from my mistakes, and to use that faith to grow and rely more fully on God and move forward.

And here's where the hopeful bit comes in. The rest of the passage above talks about how, as humans, we have a body with MANY parts, and all of those parts serve an important, indispensable function. In the same way, in the Christian faith, in the "body of believers" EVERY person (member) serves an important, indispensable purpose, because God has endowed each of us with special gifts and talents that are unique ONLY to us. It is then our job to bring those talents to the table, and serve others (and, most importantly, God).

Even if you have a different faith than mine, or faith isn't your thing, I think there's a powerful message we can gain from this. Human beings are amazing, miraculous creatures, capable of exploring deep oceans and flying to the moon and bringing forth life and saving ecosystems. But, we are also limited. We have a finite number of hours in the day in which we can do work before we have to crash and sleep. We have a finite number of years on this earth before our lives are done. So we have to take HONEST stock of ourselves (to "think of ourselves in sober judgment," if you will), to understand what our limitations are.

However, even acknowledging those limitations, even living with those limitations, every human being on this planet is important and indispensable. We all have talents, strengths, gifts, whatever you want to call them, and in order to make this world a better place, I am a FIRM believer that it's our job to bring those talents and gifts to the table to serve other people.

So, I'm going to be more honest about my limitations this year. I'm going to stop trying to be so self reliant, to ask for help more, to try to learn from my failures and mistakes. BUT I'm ALSO going to seek to utilize my strengths more, and to hone my gifts. There are things that I'm bad at, and I need to be okay with that, but there are also things that I'm good at, that I need to be thankful for. And I owe everyone--family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, students, strangers, everyone--my time, my talents, and my treasures. Gifts are meant to be shared. Light is meant to shine.

In 2014, I'm trying to go back to the basics, to find simplicity--what is natural, what is unembellished, what is sincere. Two important parts of this quest will be (1) acknowledging and being honest about my limitations, but also (2) bringing my gifts to bear, and using BOTH my strengths and weaknesses to love and serve others better and more this year.

How can you acknowledge and learn from your limitations this year? How will you utilize your strengths more? How will you let your light shine brighter in 2014?