Wisdom from an old fogey…
Aug 21st, 2010 by ljkim
In places other than New York, people really like to hear that God accepts you “just the way that you are…” It doesn’t mean you don’t have room to grow – but that God loves and adores you right now, just the way a parent loves his newborn, even as he expects the baby to one day grow up. Here in NY, the problem isn’t so much that we worry about God loving us as we are – the problem is we have trouble loving ourselves as we are. Not self-hate in a psycho babble sort of way, or a religious way… But we have trouble loving how we look, how we act, our pedigree, what we do for a living, what we’ve accomplished. We look around and there are people who are younger, better looking, more successful, smarter, etc – and since we have such good taste, we can’t stand being anything less.
One of the things that I find gets easier as I get older, is accepting myself for who I am…limitations, history, and all… I know this sounds a bit like self-help mumbo jumbo, but bear with me here. If you can’t love yourself as part of God’s work in progress, and really delight in who you are, chances are you can’t really delight in anything else God sends your way either. To be unhappy with yourself in a way that you can’t see how God delights in your ‘sinful saved by grace-ness’ means being at odds with God. Because on some level you realize that He who can give you everything you want seems to have different plans.
Sure it’s fine to be dissatisfied with Sin and sinfulness, selfishness, self-absorption. Or even to be dissatisfied with failure and want to get up and do better… But getting down on yourself is the first sign that you’re seeing things contrary to how God sees you. When a baby tries to walk and falls, normal sane parents don’t berate the baby for its stupidity… and God doesn’t think less of you because of Sin. He accepts you, and plans to grow you up so that one day you’ll be able to walk and not stumble, and run and not grow weary. You’re beautiful right now baby, and one day you’ll really shine, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less right now. Jesus has made you a child of the Almighty, so cheer up!
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