I talked to a very dear friend recently about my question - what is the difference or how to understand how to depend on God while working out one's salvation.
Particularly, I have been thinking about this:
If someone is calling out your strengths - naming them - telling them to you - it can be incredibly encouraging.
I, in my faulty understanding of the spiritual life, can still get confused by this. How does one reconcile acknowledging, naming and owning one's strengths with the need to depend on God? I struggle with a fear of forgetting God, of stepping out of bounds, trying to live my life on my own strength instead of God's.
My friend reminded me of what humility is - having a true understanding of one's self. This includes knowing one's strengths and weaknesses. It is good to know one's strengths, as long as we remember that God is the source of them.
I am learning more what it means to live in the strengths of myself instead of the weaknesses.
This is part of a larger interior journey I am on, which can be summerized this way:
We have souls, and we must learn to live in them.
words to live by.
ReplyDeletethanks LM.
ReplyDeleteI feel that such words will take a life time for me to learn to live within....
Who wrote that last quote? I like it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!!!
ReplyDeleteActually, I wrote it... was discussing with a friend about these topics and this was one of the things I said... a culmination of a lot of process and being reminded of the verse that we must bear our souls with patience...
Yes: "It is good to know one's strengths, as long as we remember that God is the source of them".
ReplyDeleteTo shift this way while remaining humble is something very good indeed. I think I can catch a glimmer.
yes... now I just have to learn to do it! :)
ReplyDelete