Life is often likened to going to school, and that’s a good analogy. God allows all sorts of things to happen in our lives to test us, to see how we’ll react to them, to teach us lessons, and to help us grow spiritually. His desire through all this, of course, is that we’ll apply ourselves, take the lessons to heart, learn from them, and live up to our full potential. In short, life’s tests are designed by Him to help us become the people He knows we can be.
One of the things that God uses to bring us along is our human weaknesses. Everyone has their share of those. Among other things, our weaknesses and failings teach us humility, patience, and other virtues. They teach us the power of prayer, which helps us to live closer to God and become more dependent on Him, and they help us to better understand others, thereby putting us in a better position to help encourage them through their problems and tests.
We are meant to learn from our weaknesses and shortcomings, as well as from our mistakes and poor decisions. The first step is to acknowledge the problem, and the next step is to determine to do something about it to overcome that weakness with God’s help. God wants to help you overcome your weaknesses, and He will if you ask Him to.
So the next time you find yourself struggling with some personal weakness, take it as a challenge. Choose to learn from it, and you’ll soon find yourself excelling in the school of life.
Cultivating Character
God created us “in His own image” (Genesis 1:26), but He’s not done yet. It’s an ongoing process. We all share some basic aspects of His nature from birth—we are eternal, spiritual beings with the capacity to reason, love, and distinguish right from wrong—but developing godly character is a lifelong process. It’s also a big part of why we’re here. What should we strive to be like? The following Bible passage provides some insight:
“The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23 NLT).
The Sermon on the Mount also serves as a guide, as Jesus highlights as blessed those who are merciful, meek, and peacemakers, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:3–9). The Bible’s “love chapter” highlights the supremacy of love: “Love is patient and kind… Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”
(1 Corinthians 13:4–7).