Life Of A Christian

I have had the opportunity to work with at risk youth for a while and what has become very effective in helping them improve is getting them to believe that I, as their counselor, have life somewhat figured out. Now, I know the premise is somewhat deceptive because I am not going to sit here and try to tell you that I have life totally figured out. But, when they are having a meltdown for whatever reason and I look at them and tell them that it will be OK and that they are going to get through whatever catastrophe of life they are dealing with, they feel better. Is what I say to them necessarily true? Not always. But, most of the time I definitely am in a better position to deal with what they are dealing with than they are and I can help them get through it.

Which brings us to the question of the day. Does anybody have it figured out? I believe that I have my life figured out within the context of I know who does have it all figured out and I am His child and that part of the peace and joy that our God offers is having access to the one that has it all figured out. I think that this is the way that God designed it and it is exactly the way that He wants it. We are made with an often described God shaped hole inside of us and there are many aspects to this hole and one of them is in the area of security. Whether we are willing to admit it or not we all have this need to know that somebody has it figured out because we know that we do not.

Deep down inside of us we all know that we don’t have it figured out and unlike when I convince a kid that it will be OK, God really does have the world in his hands and He is able to lead us through life knowing the beginning from the end. I think that is about as figured out as it can be. Unfortunately, we live in a world that will tell us that we have to have it figured out on our own and it has developed many ways that we can pretend to have this security. The problem is that you cannot fool the spirit deep inside of us and without God’s security we don’t have it figured out and we can present any facade that we want, but we all know the truth. Security and hope can only come from knowing God. The God that has it all figured out

When it comes to young people, they may or may not have a relationship with God that allows them to feel the security that I and other Christians have. It’s not that they are not faithful enough or that they are not in the right environment or some other product of their youth, but maybe they are just not developmentally there yet. I think that, as adults and parents, it is our job to be what God will eventually be to them and provide them with security. Again, I think that God has set it up this way. Again, is this deceptive? No, I don’t think so. Our youth are struggling because they have no hope and security is hope. I don’t think that they have the capacity to think abstractly enough to understand hope from a loving God, but they do have enough awareness to receive it from us.  It won’t last forever, but it is our job as adults to look at kids and tell them that I got this until we can pass them off to the one who really does.

I know that it has been a while, but the first question about self-esteem that needed to answered is where does it come from? I hope that I have adequately began to broach the subject in the last post even though I know that there is more to discuss. For a review, self-esteem comes from God. Only He can truly give it to us. The second question that needs to be answered and I think not the more important, but definitely more relevant question is how we get it especially if we do not currently have it. I don’t think that people who have self-esteem generally think about how they got it and I am not sure they often care. It is just there and it is as natural as breathing. But what about those that do not have it? I want to say before we get deeper into this discussion that conveying my thoughts on self-esteem has become very personal for me. As a counselor, it has become a point of pain and inadequacy. I think that God has called me to help people and I try to proclaim God’s truth in my counseling because I believe that it is all that I truly have to offer that is of any value. Often, people may not heed what I have to tell them and while I want them to I can handle it if they reject what I have to offer because I know that I am only the messenger. When working with self-esteem issues and I believe more and more that they are almost all some form of deep self-esteem issue that the problem is not the will of wanting self-esteem, but the sheer inability of a person to make it real in a their life. People will say to me all the time that they get what I am saying about where self-esteem comes from but, then I am unable to adequately share with them to a point where what I am about to say sinks in.

That being said, here it is. How do we get self-esteem? We accept it. In theory it is just that simple, yet for those without self-esteem it does not always appear to be that simple. Self-esteem is so connected to how we feel deep inside and while we can do great work to bring out the origins of why we do not have it, grabbing the reality of personal value and taking it for our own seems to be the most difficult thing in the world to do sometimes. I want to say here that I know many have overcome self-esteem issues by understanding God’s grace, but I still find many do not. To me, it is the same thing as salvation. It is all about grace and all about forgiveness and it would seem that salvation and self-esteem go hand in hand, but not always. I know so many people that are truly saved and that are going to go to heaven and they still struggle with personal self worth. I will usually tell these people that this one issue will be the one that will stop their personal growth in Christ and it is why they are unable to truly become what He has called them to be and why they are unable to exercise many of the demons in their lives.

So, what do we do? I believe that we should never give up on any issue in our life because I think that God is constantly sanctifying us, but it just seems that because this one is so deep sometimes it seems unconquerable. As always, I believe that we start with truth. The truth is that God has declared us worthy and that He wants us to have self-esteem in Him. I think a major part of the problem is that when things don’t get better in a short period of time that we think that we may have to change our strategy. I want to reiterate here what I believe to be true always. God loves us and self-esteem comes from Him and that all we need to do is to take it. It is a free gift just like grace. As a matter of fact it is grace. As I alluded to earlier sometimes the self-esteem part of our salvation doesn’t always take root. But, I am always reminded that the Bible says that we are to work out our grace daily and I believe this to be a perfect example of how our grace can become deeper in us as we mature as a Christian.

The message that I want to convey about self-esteem is multiple layered. First, it comes from God and only from Him. One of the reasons that self-esteem is so hard to grasp is that we really do not have value on our own, but He gives it to us freely. It is imputed to us just like salvation. Also, that all we have to do is claim self-esteem in His name. Again, just like salvation. I know this is sometimes difficult, but we must work on this issue until we overcome it. I want to encourage anyone that does not have self-esteem to do one thing and only one thing to get it. I encourage all of us to do everything that we can to get as close as we can to the one and true living God every second of every day and let his love impute the worthiness and value that He has freely given us until it becomes a reality in our lives. I encourage perseverance in this area as it tends to be one of the hardest issues to overcome and the most destructive in our lives.

The subject of self esteem is an interesting one with many questions and variables attached to it. The first question that needs to be answered is where does it come from? I think that by definition since self esteem is the way that we perceive ourselves that it would seem logical that it comes from ourselves, that we create it on our own and achieving it is part of growing and maturing as a person. I think that this is a common thought process in the world today whether a person is a Christian or not. But I do not think that this is true at all. The origin of self esteem is simple to me. God gave it to us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and God declares us valuable even though we do not have any inherent value on our own.

The Bible talks about our extreme depravity and the apostle Paul compared our ability to attain worth and value as filthy rags. The visual on that one is disgusting, but as Paul often did he is using an extreme example to make an extreme point. He compared us to menstrual residue. I think that the Bible is clear in stating that we in and of ourselves do not have any value that we can bring to the existence or enhancement of this world outside of the love and grace that God has shown towards us as humans. We do not even have the ability to recognize God’s love unless He imparts that ability to us. What are we without Him? We are nothing. Our value is as the creation and just as I have admiration for a beautiful car, artwork, music or structure the esteem of the creation is truly of the creator and maintainer.

With a self achieving thought process, it is easy to see why we live in a world that would struggle to have self esteem. The interesting thing is that as Satan often does he creates a system that attempts to supplant God’s system. God’s has imparted value to all humans and the world would attempt to have us believe that it is not that simple and that there has to be a way that we can earn or achieve value on our own. No wonder lack of self esteem is a major problem in our world because imagine believing that value and worth is achieved, but never really deep in your heart being able to get there. One of two things will happen. We either give in to the thought that there has to be a way and create a false system in which we can achieve a false sense of value and we work under the premise that this is the best that we can do or we succumb to a deep feeling of inadequacy. It’s a bleak prospect either way and this is the world that we live in right now and it is getting worse.

In addition, the natural progression if we do not truly see value in ourselves is that we do not truly see value in others. The spiral downward into emotional anarchy and depravity is inevitable and it is happening right in front of us. We live in a dog eat dog world where the value of others is whatever value that they can contribute to ones personal existence. God imparts value to us so that we can impart value to others. I think that we see the battle of these two world views in direct application in two specific areas in our world today. They are parenting and marriage. God declares both of these institutions as sacrificial and serving. The world does not see it that way and sees that marriage and parenting are for personal edification and so when that is not achieved it is natural to abandon the process without thought of consequence. We see the evidence of the thought process all around us,

The conclusion to me is to declare the capital “T” truth of the love and grace of God. It’s not totally logical and often, just like grace, difficult to accept because we, as humans, do not have inherent natural value. The Bible declares this clearly. But, and this is a big but, we have imparted value given to us by the creator God of the universe simply because He created us and esteems us as His own. It is difficult to understand, but it is a fact that we have to embrace and without it there will be difficulty in understanding God’s plan for our life and having the ability to walk in His grace and peace daily. We can’t become more or less valuable by anything that we do. We just are valuable and worthy because He said so. Self esteem is given and accepted not accomplished.

I have the opportunity to work with people that are struggling with some issue in their life. I try to bring the Truth of the word to them, but I think that many people get so caught up in their own personal reality that it clouds their judgement. One of the reasons I am so against the morally relative culture that we live in is that it propagates distortion from reality and Truth. I use a capital “T” because I think there is relative truth and I think that there are things that are transcendentally true and then there is capital “T” Truth that is absolutely true all the time and for all time

God presents many of these truths to us in His word and I try to focus on them even when it is sometimes hard to discern the proper application of that Truth. I don’t think that the struggle to discern application alleviates the responsibility for all of us to keep trying to get the application as correct as possible or alter or alleviate the fact that Truths exists. There are several truths that I commonly use in dealing with solving issues. God is sovereign, God loves us, all of us, Jesus died for us, all of us, and gave us grace just to name a few. It’s that last one that has my attention lately and a specific part of it.

Grace, what is it and what does it mean? I can give all the pat answers and we all know them, but the word says to work out our grace daily. What does that mean? Well the angle that has intrigued me lately is that I meet so many people that are saved, and I truly believe that they are saved, but they truly don’t understand God’s grace and what it means as it pertains to one particular issue. There is much depth to grace and different aspects to it, but the one that intrigues me is as it pertains to self esteem. Self esteem is the value that we place on ourselves.

I am finding that the core issue with many disorders and issues in life directly come from a lack of personal self esteem. There are presenting issues and presenting manifestations of those issues, but what I see more and more is an underlying lack of worthiness as the driving force at the most primal level. I am not going to tell you that I have done extensive research, but I am tracing anxiety, depression, substance abuse and especially eating disorders all back to lack of worthiness and lack of self esteem. The most interesting part is that I can share the Truth of God’s love and His declaration of worthiness through the shed blood of the cross and philosophically it can be understood and yet never be incorporated into a person’s life. It’s not for a lack of desire to want to embrace the Truth, but a deep inability to believe it is true.

I know much of pathology is deep seated, but I am finding that this is one of the foundational Truths that is lacking in many people, Christian and non-Christian alike. It is hard to convince many people that they have innate value as a human being just because they exist. I think that the culture has inserted many wedges to keep people from this foundational Truth by creating so many standards by which value and worthiness are earned instead of received. I have so much more to say about this issue that I think we are going to have to explore it depth with at least one more post.