An Interview with God

I have a meeting with the director of my deparment next week to discuss if there any openings for me in the fall. To prepare for the meeting, I've been organizing my job portfolio. I found a copy of one of my old self-evaluations, outlining my strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a job interview where I wasn’t asked this question. When I had my interview for my newspaper job, my editor even phrased the question as “and now the question we all knew what coming…what is your greatest weakness?”. I dread this question, because it’s such a weighted question- give the wrong answer and the job could go to someone else.
I couldn’t help but think about what would happen if we actually had to audition or interview to be Christians. What if we had to go one day to have a chat with God about why we should be saved? What are the strengths and weaknesses you would present to Him? I’ve picked two of each.

Strengths:
1) I’m very organized.
All my files are alphabetized, my closet is colour coordinated, when writing on my calendar or agenda I have a specific colour for each event (work, school stuff, fun stuff, reminders, etc), and everything has it’s spot. I’m not as rigid as I sound, and I won’t flip out if someone placed the “Bills” file between “school notes” and “taxes”, I just find that life flows so much better when everything is organized.
I like to organize my devotions. I keep a journal chronicling what I’ve read, any verses that really stuck out at me and any thoughts that I’ve been having. (Not only does this keep me on track with my devotions and readings, but it’s fun to flip through old journals from years ago!).
2) I’m very non-judgemental.
I hate it when people judge others, and I tend to very rarely judge people. As a result, I think that this makes me easy to talk to and confide in. Through working at the youth centre and coaching I’ve had a lot of great talks with kids who are going through problems, and even random classmates have confided to me in the past. I think as Christians it’s important for us to be accepting of others, and to not judge each other.

And now that I’ve made myself sound so wonderful (!!) ….

Weaknesses:
1) I always have a “full mouth”.
You know the expression “don’t bite off more than you can chew”? I usually don’t take on more than I can handle, but I am usually busy. At any given time I’ll be juggling participating in two different sports, hanging out with friends, a job (or two this summer!), classes and homework (not anymore!!), reading, writing, playing with my pets … finding the time to actually spend time with God, in prayer and in study, is often hard to do. (See, my organizational skills aren’t sounding quite so crazy anymore!).
2) I get tunnel-vision.
When I was still in school, most of my energy and focus went into class, my research and my job, and I didn’t work on anything else until these three were completely taken care of. Were those things important? Sure! But so are my friends, actually making a nutritious meal…and my relationship with Christ! Can I afford to take half an hour off each day to open my Bible? Yes, but sometimes it’s hard for me to do. I definitely need to work on not letting other important things slide.

While a relationship with Christ goes much deeper than organizing devotions, I still find it interesting how our individual differences can reflect where we fall short in our walk with God, and where we are strong. Luckily for us, God doesn’t care about our organizational skills or how busy we are, He loves us for who we are. He created us with our own individual strengths and weaknesses. That’s a bit of a re-assurance as I brace myself for that inevitable question next week.

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth".
- 2 Timothy 2:15

Love In Christ, from one very organized and very busy Christian-

*L