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What are your strengths and weaknesses? It’s a possible question in a job interview and indeed.com suggests you, first of all, tell the truth. 

Second, you should list your weaknesses first so you end on a positive note. And if you have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses, ask a friend… a good friend. Only a good friend will tell you the truth, especially the truth about your weaknesses.

It’s actually a good idea, even if you’re not facing a job interview, to look in your mirror once in a while. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What is there beneath the surface? Are you, on the outside, the same person you are on the inside? We’ve all heard about fake news; and we all know fake people… who are generally weak people. 

A real person, a strong person, is the same inside and outside, at home and at work, with those of us who are ordinary and with those of us who are important. 

Actually, there are two kinds of strength; one refers to muscles and the other refers to your life. Samuel gave us some good advice, “It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the LORD will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.” (1 Samuel 2:9–10)

Another way of saying all that is, “Do you have both kinds of strength?” Do you have heart? And there are two kinds of heart; the first is a heart and the second is simply heart. 

The second refers to the strengths we started with in the first paragraph; it’s emotional, relational, and spiritual. “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

I remember, growing up in Cairo, Georgia, seeing Paul Anderson in the parking lot of the Chevrolet dealership. He was raising money for his Paul Anderson Youth Home; it’s a Christian residential home for troubled youth. He drove a nail through a board with the palm of his hand, protected only by a folded napkin, and much more. But of all the things he did, the one I remember best is picking up the flat-bed trailer of an “eighteen-wheeler” truck. And before he picked up the trailer, he filled it with volunteers sitting around the edge.

Luke tells us, “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.” Stature is physical strength; the rest are related to mental, emotional, and spiritual strength. Our friends on the Navajo Reservation would call it “hozho” or balance; they’d say Jesus and Paul, as we all should, grew up and lived a balanced life… inside and outside.