Search me god

​“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)

“Low self-esteem is rooted in the anxiety of not feeling good enough. No one is born with low self-esteem. It is a self-debilitating condition developed from childhood as a result of feeling unappreciated, undermined or misunderstood by authority figures, mostly parents. When our spirits are crushed by those we look up to the most during a vulnerable age, we begin to question our value. Eventually, we find it hard to celebrate who God has made us to be. Our focus becomes our inadequacies rather than God’s saving grace. Low self-esteem and shame often go hand in hand.”

Low self-esteem can be spurred by a critical inner voice. That inner voice might sound logical because it is a familiar voice. The negative automatic thinking such as, “I made the same mistake again. I am so hopeless. I don’t deserve God’s forgiveness,” is rooted in the messaging we received in the past. We have learned to repeat to ourselves what has been spoken to  us.

Some think that repentance means the dread of hell and a sense of wrath, but repentance is a change of mind with regard to sin—with regard to everything, even self-vilification.

Spurgeon wrote, “I advise you, dear friends, to beware of making yourselves out to be worse than you really are. There are some persons who could not do so if they tried…Do not call yourself ‘the chief of sinners’ if you are not, and do not suppose that repentance means the exaggeration of your evil life into something more evil than it really was. It is enough for you to go and confess the truth, and to be sorrowful that you have forgotten your God—that your thoughts have been turned away from the true center—that you have lived for yourself, and hence have been an enemy of the Most High. Go and confess that to the Lord, but do not bring against yourself a morbid self-accusation which is not true in God’s sight.”

Help us Lord, to see ourselves as you see us.

GIGI❤️

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