FINDING OUR PERSONHOOD

Today, we are still being taught to believe in ourselves and to build our self-esteem. This unquestioned advice is presented with an assortment of techniques to facilitate this goal, including visualizations, positive affirmations, and avoidance of those who do not give us these affirmations.

However, there are many problems with this pursuit. While these techniques might give us a temporary boost, there is little evidence that they will produce any desired long-term benefits. In addition to this, this focus is the source of several unintended costs:

• It is self-focused. Perhaps such self-obsession will produce despondency instead of hope. Building self-esteem inevitably blinds us to ourselves.
• It’s a denial of who we really are.
• It denies our negatives and inflates our positives. This is the antithesis of truth, self-awareness, and self-acceptance. Even the practice of mindfulness tends to minimize the importance of self-examination and the taking of an honest moral inventory of our lives.
• It is a drug that requires increasing doses to maintain a fleeting high.
• It tends to lead to pride and arrogance when “successful, depression when not.

Biblical wisdom tends in the opposite direction. It warns against pride and its fruits:

• He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the LORD will be prospered. (Proverbs 28:25 NKJV)

Building self-esteem inevitably produces pride. How? It’s built upon a faulty foundation of the desire to exalt ourselves above others.

You might protest, “I feel bad about myself. I don’t see the harm of wanting to feel better about myself.” Neither do l! However, it is bought at the price of thinking better about oneself, which is denial.

Besides this problem, our level of self-esteem is always in relation to others. We might convince ourselves that we are widely esteemed. However, we become prone to resent those who are more esteemed or liked.

The self-esteem drug fails to address the underlying problem - alienation from God and, secondarily, the self. Therefore, it is only a palliative, like a sleeping pill (just try using antihistamines!) which requires increasing fixes.

Also, the thrust to build self-esteem undermines understanding. How? If our goal is to feel good about ourselves, it will be at the expense of thinking accurately about ourselves.

So what? Well, if we want to manage our lives well, we first have to understand them. This same principle pertains to all areas of our lives. For example, if we want to manage our clothing well, we first have to know which can go into the washing machine and the dryer and for how long. This is also true for our lives. However, when understanding has been taken captive by the need to feel good, it will inevitably suffer.

However, if we really want to feel good about ourselves, the obsessive focus of raising our self-esteem will take us in the wrong direction. While self-focus is necessary for self-correction, a safe-place of guaranteed love and forgiveness is a must. We cannot endure the burden of our lives and of seeing our many failures and inadequacies. This is why Jesus promised to be our resting place:

• “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Elevating ourselves becomes an unbearable burden. It is also antithetical to peace and self-acceptance. In its quest for self-esteem, it is unwilling to accept the self, even to flee from the self. Result – a never-ending peace-depriving struggle to suppress the real self.