What is your sense of self? How we see our self impacts every aspect of our daily life. We can either be our own worst enemy or our number one advocate for blessing. For too long I struggled to like or enjoy myself. Self disgust is epidemic and causes so many of our personal and social maladies. Our identity is crucial. So much of how we experience life hinges on this single issue.
Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs…” Matthew 22:37-39a, The Message, emphasis mine. All of life’s fulfillment and relational success hangs on these pegs. But we must believe how unconditional God’s love is for us. We love him because he first loved us. Nothing alters or impacts our self view like receiving God’s love in our heart. His love; which reflects his opinion of us, changes our heart, which is the core of our identity.
I am not a ‘safe’ or good friend to others unless I first befriend the ‘core’ of myself, my own heart. How we treat the significant others in our life is a reflection of how we have first treated our heart. Are you ‘safe’ to your heart? A healthy identity begins with getting God’s heart for your heart! Can you entrust your heart to your care? “Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.” Proverbs 4:23, The Message. Jesus has chosen to live in our hearts. That should certainly elevate our self view.
It was said of David that he had a heart after God. I believe he first had a proper view of God’s heart toward him. And that view directed his self view. “Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God-you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration-what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.” Psalm 139:13-16, The Message. We are not a mistake or flawed. We are a unique, unrepeatable miracle of God’s grace.
One of my good friends had this awesome insight into how special we are. He says; “just reflect on your "sympathetic nervous system." Can you imagine going through the torment of an existence having to think moment by moment, "Okay; now, breathe", or "beat heart", or "digest stomach", or..."? He says, “One of the root reasons I believe we cannot retain how much 'we have it made' (which is a healthy self view), is we forget how fearfully and wonderfully we 'are' made.”
Surely, if our creator went to such lengths to make us so special, we can agree with his lofty view of us! “Your thoughts--how rare, how beautiful! God, I’ll never comprehend them! I couldn’t even count them—any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you (your view of me)!” Psalm 139:17-18, The Message, parenthesis mine. Be nurtured today by God’s opinion of you!
In the grip of Papa’s gracious view of me! Ron Ross
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