In Episode 60 of “Coffee with Phil,” your host Phil Strong explores the concept that your greatest strength, when overextended, can become your greatest weakness. Drawing insights from personal experiences and the teachings of Dr. Lance, Phil delves into the vulnerability of strengths like relational connection and visionary leadership. He reflects on the flip side of spiritual gifts, emphasizing the importance of recognizing cracks in our lives where God’s golden repair can bring about a completed work. Join Phil in a candid discussion about embracing strengths, managing vulnerabilities, and partnering with God’s transformative work in our lives.
BONUS CONTENT
- Previous Episode: Episode 59
- Episode mentioned: Episode 25
- John Piper: Desiring God
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Introduction
Well, hi and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to coffee with Phil. You’re with your host, Phil strong, and we’re hanging out again. And I can’t believe it. I’m looking down at my notes. Episode 60, where has the time gone and I suppose I’m enjoying the pattern of a weekly podcast. Getting in your air pods once a week, joining you on your drive to work wherever you’re heading, and hoping that we’re making faith real.
You know, we’re wanting to journey together and I’m trying to be vulnerable in this and even just recently I sent a link across to my board. And I said, hey, if you want to know where I’m at, if you want a temperature sort of check on your guy, then listen to the podcast, because I’m sharing my life on this channel.
And so today in coffee with Phil, we’re talking about your strength could be a weakness, and I learned this years ago. So, a guy called Lance. Well, now, Doctor Lance. Well, now he’s a crazy prophetic teacher. Used to be the pastor of a church. He now speaks globally in business marketplace and all sorts of matters.
And he got a little bit involved in political commentary with Trump. Well, let’s not get into that, but anyway, he always used to say this to us when I was in his programmes, he’d be saying “guys your greatest strength overextend becomes your greatest weakness.” Your greatest strength, overextended, becomes your greatest weakness. And this is what I want to talk about today and I’m going to talk about it from a personal perspective and in doing so, my ambition is that you would then reflect on your own circumstances so that you might say to yourself…
Let me give you this question at the beginning and you can think about it afterwards. But what are my strengths that I tend to stretch? That then hurt me or bite me in the bum. And that’s a different way, different way to ask the question, but basically, what are my strengths that I overextend that become my weakness and I’ll, I’ll give you some examples and then I’ll jump into some more detail.
So, for example, one of my strengths is I’m a people person. So, I’m highly relational if you do strengths finders of one of my top five is “woo”, which means I can woo people. I can connect with people, and I can get them on my wavelength and that’s a great strength, but the problem is I let people in easy. The problem is, I trust people quickly as a demonstration of my desire to connect with them, and they can turn around and hurt me.
It also means that I try to be everybody’s friend. It also means that I open myself in ways that some don’t appreciate, but my strength and relational connection when I push it too far, when I overextend it, it can become a weakness. Another example from a long-term active involvement in the property market and the financial market is I have the ability to see property deals and business opportunities where other people can’t see them.
I walk down the road, I see an opportunity, I go through an open home. To find something with A twist, I’m talking to someone about their circumstances, and I say, “hey, did you consider this as a possibility?” And so, seeing opportunities in financial and property markets is a fantastic strength, but when I overextend that and think well, I just need to do every opportunity that I can see, then you know I’ve been in times where I’ve stretched myself financially. I’ve borrowed more than I should. I’ve made property deals where I have got contracts on properties that I can’t pay for, and I’ve got to either think fast, work fast or make a way through the back door and this has hurt me.
I’ll be honest with you. There was one time I had this deal, I signed it. It was, let’s just say it was north of 1,000,000 bucks. And in those days that was a lot of money. And I couldn’t satisfy it. I was declined. I had opportunities that people shut doors and I had people that said yes to me that then turned around and change their mind.
The reality was I had to ring my friend and say bro, I can’t complete this. I know I’ve signed it. I’m working on it, but I’m just letting you know. I’m In trouble. And he and his business partner went full monty on me, and I ended up in bed for two days with the curtain shut, hiding from the world. So, my point is this, the opportunity and the strength of me seeing that opportunity pushed me too far and became something that could have actually taken me out. So, those are two examples and I want to put some context around that.
But before I do, I just want to say thanks for joining me. Thanks for being on the journey. Coffee with Phil was something I’m really enjoying. I’m really passionate about. I think you know we just need to do life together. We need to be vulnerable and I’m trying to demonstrate that now I know this is a one way journey. But I’m happy to have a conversation. If something here triggers or sparks something in you or you just strongly disagree with what I’m saying, then reach out through one of the connection points and we’ll be happy to have a chat.
But please If you’re getting value out of this. Share it with someone you know. Someone said to me yesterday. They said I sent your podcast channel to a friend of mine. He’s been going through stuff, and I just send it to him and said man you need to get on board and follow this guy’s Journey and I really appreciate that. So, who do you know that would benefit from going on a journey with me and enjoying my fanaticism with coffee and conversations I sometimes have about the coffee I’m drinking. Who would you know share the link through the podcast channel you’re using, and let’s get some more people on this gravy train.
A Personal Dive into My Turmoil
What I want to do is I want to open a book that’s on my desk here. I’ve quoted this book often, but I want to talk about it and give you a little bit of a deep dive into some of my turmoil. If I could say it that way. And I’ve been working through some of my natural tendencies, which are strengths, my natural traits or my personality type, because these are who God made me to be. These are my strengths, my gifts that I bring to the world. But with them potentially comes a dark side and what I mean by that is these gifts. When I use them outside of the manner in which God intended me to, then they can become a weakness or a pain point.
And so, I want to say this, you know, I would recognise myself… oh what is the book. Haha, I’ll come back to that. OK, so we’ll put this in the show notes. The book is I’ve quoted this before. It’s called the weary leaders guide to burnout a journey from exhaustion to wholeness by a guy called Sean Nemecek. And we’ll put the link in the show notes if you want to read more of his writing.
I’ve found this really interesting because I’m on a journey of self-discovery with regards to faith, how God’s using my journey to help me, to help others, but if I don’t help myself, I won’t be helping anybody anyway. In this he talks about the paths we follow and in looking at the type of leader we are and the type of strengths we bring to a situation.
And I would say I’m idealistic. I’m an idealistic leader filled with a deep desire to change the world that just describes me, but this idealistic passion can be the very thing that hurts these people short of miraculous work of God in the hand of God moving strongly, it’s impossible for their idealistic vision to be fully and completely implemented.
So, here’s my problem. I can see an opportunity to change the world, but because it’s so massive it’s just impossible for me to do by myself. A dreamer. I’m a dreamer and a visionary leader, but Sean writes this on page 28 when these dreamy, lofty expectations are not met, this leader gets frustrated and depressed. They push even harder from this point to meet their goals. Falling short again, they create a burnout loop of work and failure, fed by expectations now.
So, here’s the point of reading. One of my strengths is my ability to move into a visionary capacity to cast vision, but to see what is not yet that might be and to create like the Lord gives me downloads and strategies, concepts, business plans and helps me to open doors to make these things happen. But they’re idealistic. Visionary. They’re possibly bigger than my lifetime. And this is a strength that, when overextended, can completely wreck me. Listen to this statement. I’ll just finish this and then we’ll move on.
But Sean also writes living only in the future without planning for the present leaves a leader stranded in the sea of their vision. They often need a partner who can help them realise their vision through strategic planning and management of people and resources. So, several times in my life I’ve had people working with me alongside me that had the capacity to almost put a harness on that vision or to build a funnel and a pipeline and a pathway whereby that vision could be channelled into productive outcomes.
So why am I saying this to you? Look, I’m just being really honest and saying these are the some of the gifts that God’s given me. And yet there’s a dark side to those that I’m learning to wrestle with so that I can be more self-aware and therefore have a stronger capacity to manage myself because I am an idealistic visionary dreamer. Now that’s a gift that God gave me. I just need to learn to use that gift well.
So, I want to pause, and I always just want to hold up a mirror and again. I’m asking you to consider what are the strengths that you’re carrying? What’s the gifting that God’s placed inside you? You’re uniquely and wonderfully made. You’re a masterpiece created by God for good works that he prepared. In advance for you. But what are they? Do you know what they are?
Spiritual Giftings
And so, understanding what those are and how to walk in, those would be the first part of your challenge. I want to flip across at this point in my notes. What I’ve got here is just diving a little bit deeper even further and flipping across to spiritual gifts because one of the thoughts that I had as I was preparing for this podcast and sharing and the best possible way I can to help you on your journey of faith is to positively and proactively challenge you with regards to your spiritual gifts. If you’re a Christian that doesn’t know what your gifts are or doesn’t believe that you have gifts, then go ahead and read Romans Chapter 12 and 1st Corinthians Chapter 12, famously known as the writings of Paul about spiritual gifts and you’ll see that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to each one as he determines.
And so, first and foremost self-awareness of these things would be vital and understanding where you are on the journey of developing those gifts. And I want to give you an example. So, let’s jump straight into to one of my spiritual gifts would be that I have a very, very strong prophetic gift. So, I started understanding this and exploring this many, many decades ago, working with friends and Wise Council. Understanding what the Bible says and then seeing prophetic ministry begin to flow out of me and quite accurately, it was stunning, surprising, but also satisfying to see God’s Holy Spirit speak and bring gifts to people through me. I was just a conduit. I’m just a carrier or the mouthpiece. But it was God’s gift of love to people.
Now one of the extensions of this gift, and it’s really just been one of my supervisors that’s articulated this clearly.. More clearly for me recently has said, Phil, you see what has not yet, he says you you’ve got that Prophet mantle now you didn’t hear me say that I think I’m a prophet. I’m quoting someone and he’s not actually saying I’m a prophet like the old Bible concept, but he’s saying you’ve got that ability to see what is not yet. And it creates a tension in you and part of the tension we’re trying to manage in this relationship with me walking with you, he says, is helping you to balance the tension of what is not yet. But what could be and how you’re going to live in today.
And so that’s my challenge and it reminded me of Elijah who was a prophet known in the Bible as a prophet. I love Elijah, because it just had such cool ending to a story where the Chariots of fire turned up and picked up Elijah in a whirlwind of fire and took him off to heaven and all he did was leave his coat behind. So that just that that rocks my world. That’s exciting. But Elijah was a prophet who could see what was not yet and lived in a space where he was called to speak it out. And then he paid the price for it.
And at the end of his story in First, Kings 17 and 18 around about there. You’re going to read that he’s on the mountain. And he has this massive victory where God turns up and burns with holy fire the offering that he put before the people and then he goes and hides and he has a “woe is me” moment and I’ve got to say to you, that’s the dark side of a prophetic gift is knowing that there’s so much potential… seeing potential in people seeing what God wants to do in a community. Recognising there’s more in the life that we each live in partnership with the Holy Spirit, and not seeing it, not walking in the tension of it.
I’m going to use the word depression because in the books that I’m reading it talks about that being a state of disconnect between what was and what could be but. I’m not talking about emotional health depression. I’m not saying Elijah was, you know, emotionally depressed and was in a dark cloud. I mean, he may well have been. I’m just not qualified to make that assessment. What I’m saying is there is a flip side to a Gift that we’ve got to comprehend and my point for me, preaching to myself here in this journey and speaking about my life is that I’m well aware what my gifts are, but I’ve never really fully Grasped the essential nature of the responsibility I carry to manage the flip side of the gift.
You know, if I’m extremely talented in speaking in front of audiences that comes with the flip side, which is the responsibility to be very careful about what I say because of the influence of my words carry. And the audience that I have. There’s always a flip side to a gift, and so a strength or a gift over extended can bring weakness with it. And so, in this example I’m saying the prophetic gift, the ability to see what is not yet and call those things the spirit is drawing out of heaven does carry some kind of burden.
The second example I wanted to share with you with regards to spiritual gifts, and I’ve spoken about this in coffee with Phil Episode 25, so it was some time ago I spoke about the calling where God sat me down and said hey, I’ve called you to be an Apostolic father. I’ve called you to raise up spiritual sons and daughters. I’m calling you to carry the burden of a father. To protect, to provide for, to speak identity, to disciple, to nurture, to lead, and to build a platform for future success. To provide a pathway of provision to provide a pathway where people can shine and excel and who they’re called to be, because that is what my father does. So, the Lord’s called me to be an Apostolic father, and in that there’s a tension. Am I good enough? Am I prepared enough? Am I? You know I’m a natural father and I know kind of I’m working that out as I go.
But the Lord is wanting to teach us… me specifically in this example from his example as our Heavenly Father. And as I sat down and reflected on this. You know, I think I’ve shared many times and I’m writing a manuscript at the moment and I’m speaking about the pain that comes through family. That is part of the price you pay to build family. And by that, I mean spiritual family, not just my natural family. You know, there’s joy and there’s pain in being a parent. And I mean that in a positive way, not in a negative way, but as an Apostolic father. There’s a flip side to the gift and the calling that has the potential to take us out, to wipe us out, or certainly to diminish our effectiveness.
And I love the character, the. The person in the Bible is a character in the narrative. But the. Apostle Paul, in the New Testament is one of my heroes. And I quote his writing often, and I look at his life and his journey through the story in the book of acts. And I try and get beneath the story or between the lines and get more connected with his story as an Apostolic father, he writes his letters, and he says I see you and I care about you. I never stop praying for you. I long to be with you. I hope that I can share more of my life with you. It’s the heart of an Apostolic father.
But the end of his writings is near the end in Second Corinthians chapter 12. In the Bible, he’s talking about the pain of his journey. And he says three times I begged the Lord to take it away. What is this he’s wanting to take away. It’s a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Now me and many others for countless… Well, for centuries we’ve been debating what Paul was talking about in that in that passage in that verse. And none of us know, you know, was it a sickness an ailment? We don’t know. Was it a personality trait? We don’t. Was it a big zit on his nose and none of us know what it was.
But as I was reflecting on this, I could see a parallel without needing to know the details. I could see a parallel that the mantle and the calling as an Apostolic father that Paul carried across the nations and the churches that he was a father to, that they became a thorn in his side. The Galatians, this is who are you? Are you fools? Have you gone back again? You know, he warned people about false prophets. He says these people have been evil in your midst.
He carried a burden, and I was wondering. Without trying to make this a theological point, I was thinking, yeah, Paul and the thorn in his side. Perhaps it was literally the burden of the gift of being a father. And so, I just leave that with you not trying to say that’s fact. I’m saying it’s a contemplation because the flip side of our spiritual gifts is the potential that they become a weakness or a vulnerable point or a thorn in our side that we’ve got to carry.
Conversation With a Friend
I was recently having a coffee and a conversation with a friend of mine last week in Auckland. I took some time out, dropped into his office and we had just had the most wonderful time. And as we were speaking and sharing, it was extremely vulnerable and literally felt the presence of God dropped into the room in a way that was tangible to us. I mean, of course, God was already there. But he said this in that conversation. He said I’m not supposed to be the hero in my story. And what he meant by that is that. You know that it was actually not going to be out of his skill, his strength, his talent, his experience or his training, that he would do great and wonderful things, he said. I’m learning more and more that it’s from and out of my brokenness that God is going to do a work.
It’s in the midst of my pain. It’s from the scars. That I Revere all that God will do his work and you know he was Speaking of his marriage. He was Speaking of his young family, and he was speaking of his ministry that he’s leading, and we agreed, you know, that a good prayer for a leader to pray often is less of me and more of the Lord. And look in there he shared something and I’m just going to click this open right now to look at it, but you may or may not have heard of this.
The Japanese art form called Kintsugi. Kintsugi is a Japanese word that also means golden joinery. Or golden repair. And it’s the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with a lacquer and dust mixed with powdered gold. So just like keep it really simple, you’ve broken a plate or a pottery bowl and you’re going to glue it together. But in the glue, you’re going to mix gold dust and so this gold dust is stirred into the glue. I’m being real crude and simple. About it, but it’s stirred into the glue to make a gold paste that you then use to join and mend this pottery together.
I’ve preached on this before. I’ve used it as an illustration for messages, because it’s just a brilliant example of how God uses our brokenness to bring about a completed work for his purposes. Alright, so think about this. If the flip side of my spiritual gifts is the risk of breaking or weakness or a thorn. There may be what God’s looking for or leading you into is in fact a brokenness where he can be working his gold to repair you, which will be the product he always intended for your life to be.
So, look for the clues. You know, I’m looking at my life and I’m going well where are the cracks? Where the cracks in my life that might demonstrate the fingerprint of God at work, you know, Paul said the Devil… Satan was given this thorn to torment me and stop me from becoming proud. Well, the devil doesn’t do anything unless God, you know, removes his hand and to allow him to. Look at the first chapter of Job as an example.
So, look for cracks. Where are the cracks that might reveal where God wants to do his work? So, you know, just as I kind of try and get this to a landing point for you, you want to ask yourself where the cracks in my life are, that might reveal what God is doing. What or how could I partner with God in this? Like maybe you just got to take your hands off the mess and stop trying to fix it yourself.
And this is what my friend was sharing. He’s like, I’m not supposed to be the hero in the story and what he meant by that is God is the artist that is repairing our lives and his best way using the gold of grace in order that our lives would represent the finished work of Christ. How can I help with that? How can I release control? How can I let go and let God do it? And maybe what you want to start doing is join me in praying this prayer.
The Word of Jesus Always Helps
Father, God, would you bring your golden repair into my life so that your work can be complete? Remind me of the words of Jesus. If I could just find them. Jesus in John Chapter 12 and verse 24, he’s talking about those that would seek him. And he says this. I tell you the solemn truth. Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies it will bear no fruit. Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will bear no fruit. And you know what God would say. I need you to die. I need you to reveal your weakness in order that my work may be complete in you, and I like to read a little bit of John Piper from time to time. He’s an author, and you can check out his website. Desiringgod.org. There’s a bunch of messages and blog posts and contributing writers.
John Piper speaks of this, and he says my pathway to glory is through death mean I want to, and Jesus is saying that’s what God wants to see. And he’s leading us even further. He’s saying you will not and cannot bear fruit in any way except by dying. Jesus was obviously using his life as an example here because ultimately, he was on his road toward the cross of Calvary.
And it was only through his death at the fruit of our salvation would be born, but Jesus’ life is an example, and in fact John Piper says Jesus’ design is for our imitation. That his life as an example of dying for salvation would also be me choosing to allow death of self to bear the fruit and the fullness of salvation that God’s got for me.
So yes, we should walk in our strengths, I’m embracing my strengths. I’m learning greater degrees of self-knowledge, self-understanding and self-management. So, I could lead myself because if you don’t know who you are, how can you lead yourself? But in that I’ve got to understand that the flip side of my strength or my gifts, the dark side would be potential weakness or in fact, a thorn on my side. But that’s where God does his best work.
And so, I’m choosing to give my gifts to him and surrender. I’m choosing to do what I can, but trust that he’s the hero of the story, and he’s the one that’s ultimately going to bring that golden repair to my life that will represent the artist who was the master. My creator.
So, look, wherever you are, May God richly bless you on your journey. If you don’t know who he is, perhaps reach out and ask him to show you who he is. If by any way what I’ve shared with you today, convicts or challenges, you then cry out to the God who made you. And ask for his gold and repair in your life. Hey, bless you friends. I’ve got something exciting coming next episode, so watch out for that is I prepare a little bit more to share my life with you. Grab a coffee, grab the next episode and let’s do some time together. Hey, I look forward to it. Take care.