Question: Who Could Ever Love Me?

Anonymous asked:

I have the fear that no one will ever love me and have horrible self esteem. So I started lying and acting like I am more interesting then I am and now I don’t even know who I am at all. What I like or what I don’t like has become a facade and I don’t know what to do to get back to the core me. Because of this I am horrified and worried that I lied myself into this idea of Jesus and Christianity. Even if I do figure myself out, I don’t know if i could forgive myself. How do I fix me and be God’s child?

 

Dear friend,

Thank you for your courage to say what most of us would dare never confess. 

There are many of us who are faking it, who feel alone, who secretly think this whole “faith” thing is crazy, who see no way forward — and simply act like it’s fine. This is all part of our human struggle, and it does NOT ever mean you’re unloveable. The very fact that you recognize these things makes you even more of a candidate for God’s unqualifying love.

What I’m seeing from you is the honesty to seek something better. But I think somewhere early in your journey, you believed a lie about yourself, and one lie fed into another, into another, into another, and now you’re so comfortable inside these walls that you can’t imagine anything else.  When you believe a lie, it always increases in energy and momentum and darkness until it’s exposed.

So can we start from the top?  Can we start over? Let’s leave behind those old lies.

You are loved by your Creator, regardless of what you’ve done or who you are or what happens from here, and you can’t do anything about that.  Nothing, I mean nothing, can shake how God feels about you.

Faith, then, is not based on religious activity or behavioral change, but being more and more certain of the reality that God absolutely loves you.

And the truth is, even if you had thousands of friends who liked you and cared for you and hung on your every word — you would still be alone somehow, separated by the invisible walls of communication, limited to the tiny space inside our head and our hearts.  The Only One who can intimately know ALL of you also loves you exactly as you are.  

You don’t need to “try to be God’s child.”  Imagine asking your parents, “How can I be your child?”   It is simply a turn of belief. 

Faith is growing in the certainty of God’s love by the proof of Him sending His Son to die and rise for you, knowing that He wants to spend the rest of eternity with you.

When you believe this, then —

 

You are free from the approval and validation of others.  I know that saying “you’re loved by God” doesn’t just flip a switch, and there will be many days when you still wished for someone to show you some affection.  But human approval is such a fickle thing.  Even in the height of good friendships, we are still limited to how much we can give and receive validation.  It’s okay to want human affection, but it’s possible to drain from others what only God can give you.  Our confidence first comes from the infinite wellspring of God.

You are free to be real with people.  You don’t have to impress anyone.  You don’t have to bargain with others for your status, popularity, or good will.  You can be awkward, nervous, anxious, and vulnerable, because your life does NOT depend on other peoples’ perception of your value.  You have an infinite value purchased by the life of Christ.  And if someone wants to judge you outside of this, that’s more reason not to base your life off them anyway.

You are free from self-esteem.  I know everyone has a loop of self-talk that replays over and over.  We are either in self-condemnation or self-exaltation.  But God says you are so loved that you cannot be crushed, and also so loved that you cannot make it on your own.  Be free from the lie that “self-esteem” can make you or break you.  The power of humility is that there is no esteem except the undeserved grace of God which He has given you by the gift of His Son.

You are free from fixing yourself.  Do we know anyone who has successfully fixed themselves, ever?  I’ve seen people try, desperately, and fail, miserably.  The Christian’s progress is submitting to the Spirit of God so that He would flex His fruits through you in a powerful display of His glory.  God will do this.  Philippians 1:6 says, “Be confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it unto completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  In every moment, submit to what God would have you do.  Don’t grade yourself on a scale — and sooner or later, you will have grown in Christ without hardly noticing.  

My dear wonderful friend, I love you and I’m praying for you. As much as I love you, God loves you infinitely more. Believe it. Preach it to yourself. And even when this truth is hardly visible in the stormy seasons of life, hold on by faith. We have a God who does not measure how “much” we believe, but by how much He loves us.

 

“Imagine how a man’s life would be if he trusted that he was loved by God. How could he interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really.”

— Donald Miller

 

— J.S.