Hello. My name is Adessa and I am a wuss.
A wimp. A chicken. A coward.
When it comes to confrontation, I absolutely hate it!
I avoid it at all costs. The truth is that too often I just give people what they want rather than stand up for myself or say how I really feel. The thought of having to tell someone something they don’t want to hear makes me physically sick. When it looks like there’s going to be an argument, I’m more than likely to run away than actually face it.
This is me. I could go through the whole story telling you why I am this way and which of my relatives passed this trait onto me, but the truth is that at this point the details don’t matter. I know what happened, and why I am the way I am.
Here’s another thing I know: The Heavenly Father does not like this part of my personality. I’d go so far as to say that He hates it.
Sound too drastic to you?
Well, I’ve got pretty convincing proof that God hates this defect in my personality: He is always trying to kill it and help me overcome it.
How is He trying to kill it?
He keeps allowing situations in my life that require bravery, honesty, and dare I say it, confrontation. Even though I’ve tried running away, avoiding confrontation, binding the enemy, praying about situations, and anything else I can find to “fix” different circumstances in my life, NOTHING WORKS!
God keeps allowing me to be in go through things where the only answer is to have a difficult conversation, be brave, take a risk and stop being a wimp. I think He’s going with the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” theory.
His mission right now in my life: Make me stronger.
Of course, my initial reaction is to ask, “Why do I have to keep going through the same trial?
Different names, faces, and details, but always the same thing?”
It’s the old “Why can’t God just love me the way I am?” question.
Of course the answer is that God does love me---He loves me too much to let me stay the way that I am. He knows that this particular quality is a defect in my personality. It’s hurting me and it’s not healthy. Just like no doctor would let a patient with an injury stay injured, God cannot watch one of His children continue being unhealthy when He knows that some physical therapy will cause healing and make His children stronger, healthier, and better able to be the person He wants them to be and do what He has called them to do.
So He challenges us and makes us uncomfortable.
He allows circumstances in our lives that attack the unhealthy, harmful things in our lives with the purpose of annihilating them and replacing them with the fruit of the spirit in our lives.
I once read a book that said, "Both God and Satan are trying to kill you. Satan wants to kill you so you will be destroyed; God wants to kill the sin in your life so He can resurrect you in the image of His Son."
I am learning this is true in my life.
The enemy wants to use this area of weakness to destroy me, but my Heavenly Father knows that with the help of the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I will not be destroyed. Instead, these trials and struggles in my life will make me stronger---healthier---holier. That is the Heavenly Father’s goal.
Hence, I am expecting more struggles, more confrontations, more times when I’m going to have to…GULP…speak the truth in love when it would be easier to run.
Why?
Because I know that God wants what is best for me and being a wuss is not what is best.
So He’ll keep putting me through spiritual therapy, making me stronger and wiser until the day I can actually say with certainty “My name is Adessa and I am not afraid.”
What about you?
What struggles do you see reappearing in your life over and over again?
What makes you say, “I can’t believe I’m facing this again? Why does this keep happening to me?”
Is it possible that God is allowing this struggle in your life because He sees things in you that He wants you to overcome?
Do you have weak areas where God is trying to make you stronger?
The truth is that nothing can touch a believer that does not first pass through the hand of God. When we are constantly faced with the same issues over and over again, we need to realize that our only exit strategy is for us to once and for all overcome.
Look that challenge in the eye, see what God is doing inside of you, agree with Him that you do need to improve in that area and say, “Bring it on!” Let’s kick this weakness to the curb and finally become the women that God wants us to be.
Are you with me?
(Wow, that actually sounded, dare I say it, BRAVE!)
