We all have strengths and weaknesses. According to Jimmy Evans, God intentionally connects couples who have very different strengths and weaknesses so that they may complement each other. These differences can also lead to strain instead of the strength and unity intended. Understand your own strengths and the strengths of your spouse, can help you harness them and address problems in your marriage.

In order to understand strengths and weaknesses better, Jimmy recommend that couples take the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment, an assessment that reveals which of 34 different traits are your strengths.

Early on in marriage, Jimmy and his wife struggled with their differences. However, when they took the StrengthsFinder Assessment and applied it to their marriage, Jimmy says it changed everything.

“We had a bad marriage for the first several years. I thought my wife was the defective. I thought she was beautiful physically, emotionally I thought she was the weirdest person I ever met. I just tried to change her. She tried to change me. It was awful.”

Fortunately, the Lord was able to heal their marriage. Even after the healing, marriage was still a mystery. In an attempt to unravel the mystery, they each took the strengths finder test.

“We took our assessment. Out of 34 total strengths, my number one strength was achiever, but that is my wife’s very last strength. My wife’s number one strength is empathy, and that’s my very last strength.”

It looked more and more like Jimmy and his wife’s strengths were polar opposite.Over the years, they have been able to use their opposite strengths and weaknesses to be effective together.

“We make a great team; we really do we complement each other’s weaknesses. Together we are very strong. It’s important to understand that God put you with someone who is your compatible opposite.

Jimmy says it’s important for couples to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their spouse in order to truly understand them as a person.

“In the strengths area, there’s just no one like you. For a person to have my top six strengths is like one in 70 billion people, a person that would have my strengths in my order.”


Jimmy Evans is the co-author of He is Founder and CEO of MarriageToday, a ministry devoted to helping couples thrive in strong and fulfilling marriages and families.

Strengths-based marriage