My greatest strengths...

are probably my greatest weaknesses. I had a talk with a friend yesterday, and we were talking about how one of the biggest criticisms I get when I teach is that people say I talk too fast (which is absolutely true). And I said to my friend, "I just get excited when I'm teaching," to which he responded by saying "I think the people that really like you, like that passion, so I'm not sure if I would slow down." Which set me to thinking... Oftentimes, it's my strengths that are also my weaknesses -- I teach with a lot of enthusiams and passion (good), but I talk real fast doing it (bad). I'm confident, and discipline myself to really think through issues so sometimes (good), but sometimes too quickly dismiss other perspectives (bad). I think that as I grow as a father/husband/pastor the process is not to focus on one's weaknesses, but refine one's strenghts, to get better and what I do best and then to smooth out the edges, where the gift is still rough.