Why Am I Like This?

Have you asked that?

Do you get frustrated like I do with the same struggles, same personality flaws, same weaknesses you see in yourself? Do you wonder if God made a mistake somewhere?

Why am I like this?

Why can't I be disciplined, decisive, steady, unemotional? Why must I battle raging hormones and unhealthy urges and a constant beat-myself-up attitude?

Why am I like this?

Then I read verses like this and KNOW I'm a worm.

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

Romans 9:20-21

Sigh. I can't win.

But what if the things I hate most in myself, those weaknesses I fight to overcome, have an accompanying strength?

I don't always like my emotional nature which feels everything so deeply, but it makes me compassionate and empathetic. It urges me to comfort, to act. Good things, right? I feel guilty when I worry, but my anxiety pushes me to seek God. I've often wished I were more outgoing, but my introverted nature has made me a good listener. Knowing my ineptness to do anything apart from God allows the Holy Spirit to work powerfully.

Could my angst over what I am NOT, and essentially what I want that I don't have, mask the beautiful I AM? If I dismiss the bad, do I throw out the good? If I accepted how God created me, flaws and all, could I find contentment? If I quit working so hard to be something different, more, better (which is really an attempt to make myself feel better and fit in), would I find true serenity? In trying to change the way God made me, am I missing His gift?

Maybe it's better to embrace all of me, even the things I don't like. He can use every flaw and weakness, every hardship or crisis, to mold me into something only He can imagine. I can whine and complain about it, or I can accept it and wait expectantly for His good.

Can you trust God with your weaknesses?



Photo Credit: wadem