Defined By Our Deficits - ”Taking It to Our Knees: Declaring Who I Am”

Defined By Our Deficits

“Any deficit that you have can never stand against the asset that that deficit is waiting to become.”

• Craig D. Lounsbrough

You know, we come to define ourselves more by what we lack than by what we possess. We define ourselves by the successes that we haven’t had, the relationships that didn’t work, the careers that never happened, and the dreams that never got off the ground because they never made it to the runway.

All of these things tell us everything that we are not. The assets that we don’t have. The confidence that we lack. The intelligence that is never intelligent enough. The talents that we don’t possess, and the determination that is never sufficiently determined. We see ourselves as a sad compilation of everything that we are not.

These deficits result in shattered relationships. Shuttered opportunities. Job losses. Financial failures. Addictions. Upended careers. Friendships that went up in flames and the charred remains of families that fell to the same fate. The shame and embarrassment mocks us, telling us that we are everything that is wrong with everything that went wrong.

Surrounded by so many failures that evidence both the depth and number of our deficits, we become defined by those deficits. We feel that there is nothing else that we can define ourselves by. We are lulled (or sometimes thrust) into the belief that we are the sum total of our failures. And soon, believing becomes becoming.

 

The Power of Thought

Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…” That’s both incredibly powerful, but wildly dangerous. We become what we think. We think ourselves into who we are. Therefore, we can think ourselves into the deficits that we think about. We can let those things define us until we ourselves are convinced of that definition.

 

The Question…

The question then becomes, “Who are we really?” Are we defined by our deficits? Is that our lot in life? Is there no escaping the things that we’ve screwed up? Do they leave an indelible mark of defeat and incompetence?

 

Our Greatest Assets in Disguise

Or, are our deficits are greatest assets in disguise? Is it possible that we are defined far more by the potential that rests in the deficit than the deficit itself? Do the roots of something great lay deep in our worst failures?

Our lives are assets in the making. We are always standing on the verge of becoming something better. Something greater. The ‘better’ in our lives is always just one step away. One decision away. One choice away. On attitude shift away. The ‘better’ is always that close and never any farther away.

The asset that any one of our deficits can become will always be far greater than the deficit from which it arose. Assets birthed of our deficits become the greatest parts of who we are. Taking what we believe to be defeat, seeing the rudimentary elements of victory embedded in that defeat, and turning that defeat into decisive victory is the stuff of true victory.

 

We’ve Got It All Backwards

God turns life on its head. He reverses the order of things. What is dead dies to death and becomes alive. Water surrenders its fluidity to feet that walk on it. Blindness becomes blinded by light. Legs that limp become legs that leap. Food for thousands from food for one. Millions from pennies. It’s all backwards. Gloriously backwards.

Sin destroys. It’s sets everything back. That’s its single mission and sole agenda. God not only shuts sin down, He throw it in reverse. He works it against itself. As Joseph said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” It’s all reversed. God walks us back from death to life. From hopelessness to hope. From fear to faith. From lives engulfed in deficits to lives empowered by assets.

 

We Don’t Think That Way

The problem is, we don’t think that way. Any belief that things might actually work this way is beaten out of us by the messages that our failures have beaten into us. We might visualize stopping something bad in our lives, or at least slowing it down. Maybe we can reign it in or temper it a bit.

But we don’t think in terms of reversals. Radical, impossible, improbable, ingenious, and wildly liberating reversals. Sin says that we can’t do that. God says that we’re supposed to do that.

 

And So…The Purpose of Deficits

Our deficits were meant to be reversed. That’s what we have them for. And in the reversal they become the assets that we never visualized them becoming. Hidden within our failures there lays all of the composite parts that set the stage for our greatest successes. The worst of us contains the lessons that teach us how to be the best of us. Therefore, our deficits do not define who we are. Rather, they tell us who we can become.

 

You Are More…

The deficits that define you are the ones that you’ve allowed to define you. God says that you are more than any deficit or combination of deficits. And that ‘more’ is boldly stated in the thirty-one “I Am” statements outlined in the Bible. That ‘more’ is laid out for you to embrace, ingest, and incorporate into your life in wildly wonderful and transformational ways. Your ‘more’ is waiting for you.

 

Conclusion

You will find all thirty-one of these “I Am” statements outlined in my book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Declaring Who I Am.” This book is a fresh, entirely thought-provoking, and richly insightful thirty-one day devotional that will assist you in both discovering and living out your real self. You will find “Taking It to Our Knees – Declaring Who I Am” on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold.

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