For When You Feel Weak

I was thinking about something recently, let's call it capacity. I often "think in metaphors" and so I was going to start this by saying imagine you are a bottle 😂. I’d refine it a bit but I’m gonna need you to trust the process as we go along, is that ok? *This is the part where I imagine you said yes btw

Disclaimer: Perhaps you are exhausted from your experiences. Perhaps you feel that the absence of certain things, a certain kind of job, income, childhood, partner, qualification etc makes you ‘weak’. You know what it is. Whatever it may be, I want you to realise first that the fact that you don't have ‘the thing’ you feel like you should have had (which in turn makes you feel weak) and are still here, thriving and getting through every day the best way you can says something about your strength doesn’t it? How do you define capacity? Are you only strong when or because you feel strong? Do you think everyone can go through what you may be going through or have gone through and still be willing to keep going? Just pause and reflect on that for a moment. You may not believe me until you are exposed to what you believe you lacked and wonder how you survived this long without it. Haven’t you heard certain people share stories about their life and what they’ve been through and others are like wow you don’t look like you’ve been through that. In fact, some people would often say thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through. Isn’t that capacity?

Forgive me for digressing, I felt like that had to be said to prime our perspective.

Okay now let’s get a bit practical.

Imagine you had to fill a 1L bottle with water. You would notice as you fill the bottle, that it has the capacity to accommodate 200ml, 500ml etc but the moment you try to exceed 1L, the water would begin to spill out. If you never realised that the bottle was 1L and only kept filling that bottle to 500ml for example, the capacity of the bottle would never change to 500ml it'd still remain as 1L. It would just be a bottle with a capacity of 1L that you have filled to 500ml because you saw it as such. So your ability to maximise the true capacity of that bottle has been limited by an inaccurate understanding or perception of its capacity. If you had seen more clearly, that outcome would be different, because you would do different i.e. continue to fill the bottle with more than 500ml of water.

"You see when you have experienced trauma, disappointment, events of failure etc it's almost as if those experiences change the way you see everything, like it becomes some sort of glasses through which you see the world and interpret things. Shortly after, you would begin to believe what that situation says about you, about your capacity, about your worth and so on, without realising that those events often lie so that you continue to behave in a way that makes the lies those experiences utter seem true. Lies like the things you lost, lacked or couldn't experience made you weak. Like you're not strong enough or ---------enough because you didn't get that job, meet that target, grow up in a certain kind of family, achieve that outcome etc.”

I don't know what you've gone through or what you may be going through at the moment that makes you feel weak or insufficient, but perhaps you've listened to the words that the situation has spoken to you for too long. Nevertheless, those words can never gainsay what God has said concerning you and your true capacity...unless you allow it (Lk.1:37). You allow it by believing those words, which in turn alters the way you perceive your true capacity, and before you know it, just like that bottle you'd resist being filled to your full capacity of 1L, only taking on opportunities and executing life from a capacity of 500ml because that's what you perceive your capacity to be. But guess what?! You'd never stop being a 1L vessel, there would always be extra room to accommodate more, to execute more. The things you are going through or have been through can never be greater than the plans that God has for you (Jer.29:11), so stop allowing the perception of your capacity to limit the extent to which you maximise it. Let's turn down the volume of all your situations may have been saying and hear what truth (Jn.14:6) says about your capacity and in whatever respect where you may feel weak. The chart below summarises a few.

Seek out more of these truths and see yourself through the lens of truth not what your situations want you to believe. God has made us strong in him, (Hab.3:19, 1Jn5:1-11) he has made strength available and creates opportunities in life to obtain the relevant skills, knowledge and networks that also help us improve and further build capacity. Tap into that strength and all that he has made available. You are strong! Yes you! And you can accomplish everything you set your mind to with God on your side! I’d be looking forward to hearing your testimony and I just might say:Wow you’re so strong, I can’t believe you went through that because you don’t look like what you’ve been through. As always I’d be rooting for you from this side : )

Take away points:

• You can begin the process of feeling stronger today by upgrading your lens of interpretation from the myopic lens that negative environments, experiences and memories have given you. I'm not advocating that you deny the reality of your situation, I'm saying subject it to a superior perspective. You are bigger than it!

• Reflect on how you define capacity. How do you define strength and weakness? What makes you define it that way?

• Be kind to yourself and tap into the strength that God has made available.

Resources:

• You can find more examples of what truth says about overcoming here

• You can find more examples of what truth says about strength here and here

• In the resources section here, you can find blank journals to help you express your thoughts and feelings and also an affirmation journal which has an entire chapter dedicated to the subject of strength amongst others.

Image credits:

• Images by Kelly Sikkema and Mulyadi

• Chart created by author (template by Freya Saad)