Well, why do we have weaknesses in the first place? Wouldn't it just be easier if we were strong in all things so that we won't have to go through heartache, depression, or other hard feelings? Well, yes you would be right. Life would be easier. But what is a easy life worth if you don't know the various different feelings to endure and to learn about? If we all had no weaknesses in our lifes, where would be the experience you would gain in trying to overcome that weakness.
I will tell you now that, for some reason, I absolutely love the feeling of doing something very challenging or hard and completing it. It helps me realize I can do hard things. Let me give you an example that happened pretty recently: I work at a warehouse job and it isn't too hard. It is mainly packaging foods and all that. One day, in the middle of my shift I got super weak. It wasn't mainly a throwing up feeling, it was just that my body felt weak and tired. It wasn't a regular tired old feeling you feel when you don't get enough sleep or that "2 o'clock" feeling people have. I could have easily just said, "Hey, I am really tired and I think I am sick so I want to go home." But I really wanted to earn the money. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to push onward. I went throughout the rest of the work shift feeling super sore and tired, but I finished the shift. Even though I felt like I was going to faint or just purely sleep, I felt great! I felt good that I pushed through to the end.
Now you may say that I shouldn't have pushed my body that way and it wouldn't be good for it. But that isn't the point I wanted to say. Do we feel sometimes the same way about our weaknesses? Do we think, "You know what, let's just take the easy way out and give into temptation or give into our weaknesses and not make them strong."? Even though it may seem easy at first, the feeling afterword just sucks! You feel like you can't do anything. You feel like you are back at square one and that you can never get passed that step.
These are usually the thoughts that I think of when I keep coming back to my weaknesses. It is terrible. But it isn't good to dwell on these thoughts forever. What I do is I look on how much I improved from last time. Like, "Look how much money I saved this time instead of spending it all." or "Look how much I have ignored or not gotten into this temptation." I learn this tatic thanks to one of Al Fox's posts about overcoming trials.
When we look at the scripture in Enos about our weaknesses become strengths, what do we think usually? I remember that I thought that if I simply asked the Lord about turning my weakness into a strength, it would turn into one that instant or sometime that day. Sometimes we fail to remember that things happen in the Lord's time. Your weaknesses will become strengths or stronger throughout, but it will never happen in just an instant. We need to get up and fall multiple times to show that we mean it and to learn how to continually fight against your weakness.
So why do we have weaknesses? To learn. To learn to be humble. To learn to continue fighting. To learn to trust. To learn to be patient. And probably most importantly, to learn more about ourselves and God. We learn more about the potential that we can do as we strive to improve our weaknesses. This life isn't just about doing, it's about becoming.
When I was finishing my mission, I felt amazing. Not just because of the many experiences I had. Not just because of the many people I had meant. But because I had finished it. There many, MANY times on my mission that I wanted to quit and give into going home. I kept telling myself I would feel a lot better if I was just home moving onto my life. But that feeling of accomplishing your entire mission is one of the best feelings you can have so far throughout your life. Accomplishing something that was hard in your life is awesome. I hate weaknesses, but I love strengthening my weaknesses.
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