Montgomery's Points of Weakness and Strength...

I’m following up on Dan Montgomery’s personality compass, as presented in his book, Finding Your Way.

Yesterday, I mentioned the compass points of Love and Aggression. Today, we’ll look at the points of Weakness and Strength, and how to see that they are balanced.

In today’s society, we are taught to be strong, and to avoid even the hint of weakness. We are usually taught to grin and bear it, never to fail, to beat the competition, and never show tears.

Healthy weakness is a good thing, and helps us be truly humble. Healthy weakness means accepting the vulnerabilities that come with life, and to accept our limitations. It is in our weakness that can come to God, and surrender to God. To call upon God so He can help us. It is by acknowledging our weakness that we are strengthened.

Weakness helps us accept that anxiety is a normal part of life. Some people run from anxiety, but we need to learn how to handle it, not avoid it.

On the opposite end is the Strength pole. Strength is a sense of adequacy and self esteem. Strength is necessary, because if we can’t esteem ourselves, we can’t esteem anyone else.

Too much strength can result in egotistic pride, self-righteousness, callous independence, or blind ambition. Scripture reminds us that this kind of false pride goes before destruction. But healthy strength allows us to do what we can for ourselves, yet to be able to ask for help when needed. You feel good about what you’re good at, but you admit when you’re wrong.

Remember that all these poles must be balanced for to operate as God created us. Too much of any one prevents us from developing the opposite, and will distort our personality and limit our effectiveness. But it’s never to late to work on being more balanced…