Yeah Critalize, it's not a typo. I know its not a word really, but I invented it when I was in high school and I think it is appropriate for what is currently happening in my life. The best place to start would be with a definition.
Critalize- (v) the action or of both analyzing and criticizing a subject at the same time.
Critalizing is something I am currently doing to myself with some help from some friends. I am trying to carve out my weaknesses. I want to know just what they are. I am learning to play to my strengths, and part of that is learning to avoid my areas of weakness. The more energy I put into this, the more I discover just how profoundly damaged I am. I really try to do things right, I try to grow, I put a ton of effort into growing and becoming more Christ like. Somehow though I manage to miss by an obscene margin. The short list of major problems I have is not good.
1.) I am very self focused, I love making things about me. I want people to think I am better, smarter, faster, more spiritual, basically that I do everything right. Now I know that no one can actually do that, and that none of the people around me are doing that, but for some reason I will not allow myself to be know as bad at something. it's not an option. I have to be good at everything in the eyes of everyone. It's all about me and how great I am. now people that know me well know that I am becoming better at admitting my shortcomings and working towards being ok with those things, but I have a forever long way to go.
2.) I am arrogant. Now its not all that harmful tot the people around you to be arrogant at most things. It may be damaging to relationships, and annoying, but really its not all that harmful for me to gloat about being good at something to people. Where it is very dangerous and potentially harmful is when I am arrogant about my knowledge in Christ, especially when i don't really know what I am talking about. It's just another instance of me wanting people to think that I know more than I do. The truth is that I know scripture, at least the words, well enough to make a lot of people think I actually understand a great deal of it. Looking at my relationships and different instances where I go to scripture to make a point, I am ashamed at the number of times I have used scripture to prove something when I may not have actually known the right answer. That's not healthy, in fact that's just sinful. I need to work on being more humble in things and more ok with my brokenness, especially when it comes to sharing the words of God.
3.) I am dishonest. Any of my close friends will tell you that most of what I say is not to be taken seriously, and a great deal of my friends will just call me a liar. Most of the not true things come from me trying to inflate other peoples opinions of myself. I will say that I have gotten much better about this, but at the same time I will say that I have a long way to go.
Here's the big deal though. I really want to change. I don't want to be those things anymore. I want to be done with it. I need Christ to come fix me. I can't do it by myself. I realize that all of the things I mentioned above all point to the same major cause, I am insecure. I am just not confidant that the regular un-inflated me will be enough for people. I doubt myself. I know all the reasons why not to be like this. I've had Galations 1:10 memorized for like 4 years, I know that it's insulting to God to say that I am not enough the way He made me, I know that no one's perfect and that I don't need to be all the things I try to be or try to make people think I am. I am just not ok with myself. I feel like there are all these things I need to fix before I can let people in. I want to have "mature struggles" before I can share the immature struggles that I am fighting with now.
So I am working on letting Christ come and fix me. I don't exactly know how to do that except praying and trying, but I want to change. Maybe its wrong to even want all the stuff to go away, maybe I just need to embrace my own brokenness and live like that. I don't know how all this is supposed to work, but I want something to happen. I am done living in this cycle that doesn't have an end.
2 comments:
"I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
-2 Corinthians 12:1-10
These are some of the most powerful words in the Bible for people who are being used by God. Paul was being used for big things. We was seeing visions, watching a movement, and preaching the gospel in the face of danger. He was being used by God in a way that most of us will never know or understand. That being said, so are you. Most people wouldn't choose Mt. Healthy as a place to do ministry, you may not have either, but you're there, faithful, and broken. I think that's right where God wants us to be at all times. Paul realized that if he relied on only his abilities, strengths, and talents, he would go nowhere, people would see him, not God. That's not what he wanted. He wanted to reflect God and that's all. I think that you can deduct from this passage that he constantly struggled with setting himself aside, so God made it so that he would have to. God would not take away the thorn in his side. There's nothing wrong with weaknesses, everyone has them. "It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick". It's wierd to say, but my prayer to God is that we are always the sick, because I don't ever want to be in a place where I don't need the ultimate doctor, Jesus.
Matt, never forget, you are talented as you are. You have strengths that God wants to use. People are attracted to you because of your personality. You have wonderful insight on scripture, you have great vision for ministry, and you have genuine compassion and concern for the people around you. That being said, you have weaknesses too, and you are aware of what they are. Don't avoid them, embrace them, God's power is made perfect in those. Continue to grow and you will gain more strengths and more weaknesses.
I think it's time to start reading the New Testament again...
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