“When this happens, one of the first things we are able to admit is that our behavior, like that of the alcoholic, has been far from sane and reasonable. When we can do this, without shame or embarrassment, we seem to break free of a hampering shell.” (ODAT, 24 August)
A defect is by nature insane and unreasonable.
An asset is by nature sane and reasonable.
Which is which depends on context. A sharp word is sane and reasonable in some contexts but not others. Even physical violence is sane and reasonable in some contexts, although obviously not in others. Sympathetically nodding is sane and reasonable in some contexts but, in others, is to become complicit in someone else’s delusion and to become co-responsible for their emotional self-imprisonment.
No shame or embarrassment is warranted on the account of having defects, because (a) I am designed to demonstrate defects (in other words their potential is part of the design, and their performance, at one time or other, in some place or other, in some form or other, is inevitable) (b) I am not my assets or defects.
I never need congratulate myself for assets to ‘offset’ defects in order that I feel less bad about myself. To feel good about myself because I have performed an asset or to feel bad about myself because I have performed a defect is to mistake performance for myself, my identity, which is a folly, a delusion, a hallucination of breathtaking inanity. I am beyond all such things. To tie my identity and value to performance in general or to a particular performance is to tie myself to a rollercoaster. No emotional stability is possible in this way. To take credit for virtues, moreover, is to take credit for what God has guided me to do with the strength He has given me to do it. It is to take credit for Someone Else’s work: usurping God’s role in order to plump up self-esteem that is damaged because I am confused about my identity is a poor way to relate to God.