Jul

5

The Selfless Side of Self-Esteem

Posted By Kay | Filed Under Contributors, Kay Vardeleon 

kay.bmp

Many orthodox Christians have waged a battle against the psychological concept of self-esteem, arguing that the very nature of personal worth is inconsistent with the fact that we human beings are only as good as the work of grace in our lives.  God-esteem is better than self-esteem — for all things we accomplish begin and end with His glory.

This is true and sadly, something we often forget. Even looking at this concept through secular eyes, self-esteem is really overrated. We cannot get everything that we want in this world— whether we believe in ourselves or not. And perhaps we aren’t supposed to. You can be as self-assured and as assertive as you want to be, but if something is really not meant to happen (or is simply not within God’s plan for our lives) it will never come to fruition. The world doesn’t revolve around our desires and plans and all of us depend upon Divine Providence, there is really no such thing as the self-made man.

But did God intended for man to have no faith in himself? See, self-esteem is not necessarily arrogance, or being puffed up, but rather self-esteem is having a positive view of one’s self. While God intended for man to hate his sinless nature, I don’t feel that God intended for man to remain in an area of self-loathing.  While by nature humanity has no value, for we are but dust and to dust we shall return,  I feel we have some degree of worth simply because in Christ we have become God’s children. It would be an extreme insult to the Savior if we persist to wallow in self-pity or suffer abuse and claim that in God is our strength.  In our relationship with God we begin to have value —simply because God loves us.

And isn’t this how a child learns that he is worth something, by an experience of his parent’s love? When we feel that someone loves us for who and what we are we begin to trust ourselves; in it we realize that  we are worth loving and that we can risk making mistakes without fear of rejection. We learn freedom and the desire to grow from this love.

And so it is the same with the love of God. While we are all worthless by our very nature, we know we have value, because God loves us enough that He saved us at the cost of His Son. And no matter message of inferiority this world sends us, perhaps through neglectful upbringing or our subsequent rejections in adult relationships, we must never forget that He loved us first, and this love is always more than enough to erase what needs to be erased and forgive what needs to be forgiven.

God tells us: “I love you (John 15:9). I have called you by name, you are mine (Isaiah 43:1). Before I formed you, I knew you. Before you were, born I consecrated you (Jeremiah 1:5). You did not choose me, I chose you (John 15:16). A Godly self-esteem which gets its strength from God’s love means that a Christian must make the most of his gifts— develop his talents to serve His purpose. He must resist abuse and work towards a higher standard of living — not because we want to make much of ourselves, but rather as an appropriate response as the Church of Christ . Christian self-esteem is not the arrogance of a “saved nation,” rather a humble strength so that we may better reflect His glory.

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.