Self esteem
The libraries and bookstores are full of texts telling us about self-esteem. If they are right, then self-esteem should be one of our highest aspirations. When was the last time you heard some expert say, ” Always remember that you are a tiny, almost insignificant blemish on the face of the universe.” Sounds silly doesn’t it?
But, in fact, we revel in our self-esteem. Comparing ourselves to our fellow man and promoting ourselves among our peers is in our nature. And self promotion is not necessarily a bad thing…….in its place. The problem is that there is a place where self-esteem is destructive. That place is in our relationship with God, our creator. God lives and operates on an entirely different plane. When we inflate our self-esteem to the point where we are co-equals with God…….or worse…….when we assign ourselves the position of supervisor of God, we commit a grave error. This is the world of the secular humanist. This is the world of the atheist and the agnostic. Unfortunately, I frequently hear Christians taking issue with some point of teaching from the Bible……from God:
Jesus was a nice man…….no more.
Hell is just a metaphor
All faiths lead to God
Fear God means respect God……not fear God
God used Darwin to build his creation
Your sexual identity is a personal choice.
What is going on here is that we have allowed our self-esteem to grow to the point where we listen to God and then apply our intellect to decide if God is right. In practice, we give ourselves veto power over the word of God.
If we are honest, it gets even worse. Because, we don’t limit our oversight of God to our intellect. We also apply our appetites. Show me a Christian who rejects a part of God’s teaching, and I will show you a Christian who wants to do something that God has clearly told him not to do. The Christian who does this has a mantra that I often hear.
“But, I’m a good person”
And that is usually true……..as far as it goes. But we are also “bad people”. Every one of us. From Billy Graham to Adolf Hitler, every one of us has a thread of evil. This is where self-esteem goes off the tracks. We become so fixed on our goodness that we deny our evil. This leads to the fatal failure of many Christians…….the belief that “I am good enough” to earn paradise.
Let me be clear.
I am not “good enough”…….and neither are you.
The moral here is humility. How can I, a created being with a streak of evil running through me, pass judgment on my creator, my God, who is by definition perfect? There are only two ways to pull this trick off:
Inflate my self-esteem to the point where I can effectively oversee God.
Denigrate God until he is more flawed than me.
Both of these intellectual exercises are dishonest. Both are wrong. Even worse, both are profoundly self-destructive.
But, that is where a huge segment of our culture is today.
A highly inflated self-esteem may be holding you back from a properly formed relationship with your creator.
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
God, speaking to Solomon, 2 Chronicles, 7:14,ESV
