Identifying and overcoming weaknesses

At church, I was asked to do a lesson on the topic of "identifying and overcoming weaknesses through faith in Jesus Christ".  Here is what I talked about in the lesson - borrowing heavily from the book Weakness is Not Sin by Wendy Ulrich (which I highly recommend).

The three main things I was hoping people would take away from the lesson were the following:

1. Weakness is not the same as sin.  Weakness is a state or condition.  Sin is a choice we make.
2. Weakness can be strength – through the grace.
3. Given our weaknesses, it is our choice whether we use them to turn toward God or turn away from God.

The dictionary defines weakness as "(1) the state or condition of lacking strength, (2) a quality or feature regarded as a disadvantage or fault: 'the product’s strengths and weaknesses', syn: infirmity, fragility, feebleness, debility, failing".  The first definition would seem to contradict my second key takeaway above and the second definition is such that most people would never view as weakness as a desirable thing or something for our benefit.  In the scriptures and gospel, "weakness" is used in a slightly different context.  Quoting from Ulrich, “weakness is inherent in the mortal body – which is fashioned from the elements of the earth, shaped by circumstances and experience, and subject to temptation, sickness, injury, fatigue, and death.  Out of this general state of human weakness we experience specific weaknesses such as variations in mental or physical well-being, vulnerability to desires and appetites, predispositions to various physical and emotional states, or differing levels of talents or abilities.  All these varying attributes come with the territory of having a mortal body.”

If we read Ether 12:27 in the Book of Mormon, we learn a couple of key things:

• We are shown our weakness by God
• He gives unto men weakness that they may be humble
• His grace is sufficient
• He can make weak things become strong

The second point is especially important - our weaknesses have been given to us by our Heavenly Father for a specific purpose as part of His plan for us.  In the context of the Plan of Salvation, we came to earth to be tried and tested.  How would that take place with we didn't have any weaknesses?  How would we learn and grow through experience if there were no aspects of who we are that would lead to hard choices or personal struggles?  I thought it was particularly interesting that Exodus 4:11 is referenced in the footnotes for this part of Ether 12:27.  Moses was called to be a prophet but worried about his weakness of being "slow of speech" and having a "slow tongue" (see Exodus 4:10).

So we know that our weaknesses are given to us by a loving Heavenly Father but we also know that weaknesses make us susceptible to temptation.  How do we resist temptation?  A few scriptures are particularly instructive.  In Mosiah, we read that “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19).”  Now, notice the parallelism in these next verses from Alma: “And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart … that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance; But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering (Alma 13:27-28)”.  So how do we put off the natural man and resist temptation?  We must humble ourselves before the Lord and pray continually.  That is the great opportunity that our weaknesses provide.  They remind us daily, perhaps hourly, of our need for a Savior and cause us to turn to the Lord for help – which He is more than happy to provide.  As part of that, we must be meek, humble, patient, full of love, and long-suffering.

In 1 Cor 10:13, we also learn that "there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."  So we also know that our Heavenly Father will always provide a way for us to escape temptation that we cannot bear.  But it's important to keep in mind here (from personal experience) that our opportunity to escape may be making the choice to avoid a given situation all together or making a choice that helps us avoid ever going down a path that might lead to this ultimate temptation being put in front of us much later down the road.

It important to remember that Jesus Christ had weaknesses and knows at a very personal level what our struggles are.  From Ulrich, “even Jesus Christ, who was completely free from sin, dealt with mortal weakness.  He was subject to illness (see Alma 7:11-12); temptation (see Hebrews 4:15); emotions (see Isaiah 53:3); “hunger, thirst, and fatigue” (Mosiah 3:7).  He learned through suffering (see Hebrews 5:8), and he had to learn and grow over time (see D&C 93:12-13).  He needed succor and help (see Luke 22:43).  He suffered in response to other people’s poor choices and judgments, and He died.  Christ joins us fully in the mortal experience.  His Atonement is not just for our sin but also includes in its scope our mortal weakness. Alma records: 'And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.  And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities' (Alma 7:11-12). An infirmity is a weakness, imperfection, frailty, or failing.”

What does it mean for Christ to take upon Himself our pains, sicknesses, and infirmities?  Sister Chieko Okazaki, the author of Lighten Up, provides a perspective that really enhances our understanding of the Atonement and how it applies in a very tangible way to our personal experience.  She says :

We know that on some level Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane.  It’s our faith that He experienced everything; absolutely everything.  Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief.  We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind; of the suffering of the entire human family.  But we don’t experience pain in generalities.  We experience individually.

And then she gives several illustrations to prove her point.

That means that Jesus knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer, how it was for your mother and how it still is for you.  He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election.  He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid.  He experienced the slave ships sailing from Ghana toward Virginia.  He experienced napalm in Vietnam.  He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.  There is nothing that you have experienced as a woman [and I’ll add as a man] that He does not know and understand on a profound level.  He understands about pregnancy and about giving birth.  He understands about rape and infertility and abortion.  He understands your mother pain when your five year old leaves for kindergarten … when a bully picks on your fifth grader or when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down Syndrome.  He knows what it feels like when someone gives your thirteen year old drugs or when someone seduces your seventeen year old.  He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children who ever come are only visitors.  When you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week or when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years.  He knows all of that because He’s been there.  In fact, he’s been lower than all of it.

Clearly our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ know each of us and our struggles individually and it is through grace that we can overcome them.  When we read about grace in the Bible Dictionary, we learn that "the main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ … It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means.  This grace is an enabling power.”

Ulrich helps us better understand this "enabling power" when she writes: "God strengthens and empowers us, even when our weaknesses remain.  When the word power is used in scripture it seems to have two meanings.  One is 'power over' someone, and this meaning is usually associated with Satan who finds that kind of power enticing.  The other meaning is 'power to' - power to create, to serve, to live. This is the kind of power God has and desires to share with us. Godly power is grounded in righteous strengths from which to strengthen others."

Earlier in her book, Ulrich says: "Strength in its highest sense is what makes us more like God.  While we often think of strength as having to do with our abilities and talents, the strength that interests God has to do with our character – our moral choices, our spiritual gifts, and our righteous desires.  When we repent of our sins and are humble about both our weak human condition and our specific weaknesses, God can help us turn the weakness of being mortal to the strength of blessing others and becoming more like Him.  Some of our specific strengths apparently came with us from the premortal experience; others are ours by blessing from the Lord as part of our mortal stewardship; still others we develop here out of weakness through God’s grace."

I then concluded with this diagram from Ulrich's book which pulls all of these ideas together into a single framework.  It helps us to understand that weaknesses (these things that we might view as "bad" or "undesirable" about ourselves) are morally neutral.  Given those weaknesses, we can exercise our agency to choose to believe Satan and commit sin or we can choose to believe Christ, humble ourselves, benefit from grace, and have the strength to do the things that God would have us do.