Do You Know Your Achilles Heel?

Knowing our Achilles matters.  Being unaware or cloudy about our vulnerabilities leads us wide open to destruction.  Usually, the destruction we experience is relational.  Our children our damaged, our spouse is assaulted, and our communities are injured.  The impact of our weaknesses that become exploited by Satan, derails careers, breaks up families, and destroys the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

We have all heard or used the term Achilles heal which refers to someone’s vulnerability or weakness.   This term is rooted in the myth of Achilles’ mother dipping him in the River Styx, making his entire body invulnerable except for the part of his foot where she held him – the proverbial Achilles heel.  Anatomically, the Achilles is the tendon which attaches the back of your calf to your heal.  When damaged or severed you are unable to walk, run, or jump.  You can’t move forward.

Recently, I was speaking with someone who had surgery on their Achilles heel.  Their entire life has been interrupted by this surgery and has left them isolated in a wheelchair.  The road to recovery is long but promising as they follow the doctor’s prescription for rest and therapy.  Metaphorically, we all have an Achilles heel – a weakness or vulnerability that can keep us from living out the life God has called us to live.

Can you identify your own Achilles heel?  What is your greatest vulnerability?  What is the source of your weakness and how does it thwart your life’s calling?  As we begin the new year, it would be wise for us to identity our own Achilles, so we don’t stumble and fall.  Christ is our healer, and he is able to bring about our healing.

1 Peter 5:8 instructs us to, “Be alert and of sober mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Satan is looking to abuse our weakness and devour us.  The image of a roaring lion is frighting and should call us to “alertness and sober mind.”  Our weakness should be in the front of our mind.  Our weakness is on the front of Satan’s mind, and he knows how to destroy you.  Ironically, the people we are closest to you probably know our weaknesses better than we know ourselves.

Core Strengths helps us to identify our weaknesses.  Our weaknesses are often rooted in our strengths.  Our strengths are tools that enable us to accomplish what is most important to ourselves.  When these strengths are not working well, we tend to overdo them.  We call these overdone strengths, and they trigger conflict in others.  Why?  Because these overdone strengths are not experienced as love by others.  A person who is principled acts unbending.  A person who is trusting becomes gullible.  A person who is analytical becomes obsessed.  A person who is quick-to-act becomes rash.  Our behavior is experienced by others as hurtful.

Satan knows how to exploit these weaknesses.   We are easy targets.  But knowing our weaknesses (Achilles heel) is only half the solution.  We must know why we are weak.  The reason for our weakness is rooted in our motivations or what we call at Consentia Group, the Three Passions of the Soul.  God created us with three passions that can only be met fully by Christ.  He offers us complete Acceptance, unshakable Security, and steadfast Significance.

Jesus told a parable about foundations where he spoke about a man who built his house on sand verses the man that built his house on a rock.  When the rains came, only the house on the rock survived.  When we build our house on the sand, it can easily be washed away, and we collapse.  When we built our Acceptance, Security, and Significance on anything else by the rock (Jesus Christ), our foundation is weak and vulnerable.  There lies our problem but also our solution.  When we find ourselves living into our overdone strengths, it is a warning that our foundation is on sand.  We need to evaluate the three passions and discover the good news of the Gospel all over again.

Because of the Fall, we are broken.  Our fallen nature seeks to built on sand.  However, Christ is our savior and offers us a new life.  He calls us to build our life on Him the rock.  As we enter into a new year, let us become more aware of our weaknesses as they can help us to build a more solid foundation on Christ.  Abiding in the love of Christ (John 15) daily is what is necessary to build that foundation.  What might that look like for you in 2023?

We are excited about 2023 because we are forming partnerships with ministry organizations that will help Consentia Group greatly expand into new communities of faith.  If you would like to grow in your own knowledge of the Gospel using the tools of Consentia Group and Core Strengths (SDI 2.0), or would like to develop skills to equip others, we invite you to go deeper and become more fluid in Gospel truths through our facilitator training.  Our next online training will be held January 30-February 2, 9am-12noon (M-Th).  Click here if interested in more information.