Thursday, February 10, 2022

SELF-DOUBT AND INADEQUACY

 


 
This might sound bizarre, but self-doubt is a spiritually good thing, as long as it re-focuses our attention upon our ultimate Hope.
 
Let me use some examples. Faith in God never came easily to me. Consequently, I had been convinced that I was, at best, a second-rate Christian. I knew that I could never serve God with the assurance and vibrancy I saw in other Christians, and I gradually lost hope.
 
Fortunately, I had no other place to turn but to God’s Word, hoping to find a hope that I might have overlooked. Gradually, I found it and became convinced of the all-sufficiency of my Savior. He proved to me that I need not be concerned about my weaknesses and deficiencies.
 
This is a lesson I need to continually relearn. The Apostle Paul had to also relearn the lesson that our weaknesses and infirmities are needful to drive us back to the One who loves us:
 
·       So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
 
But I also hated myself. I never felt loved, and, in many ways, I strove to be a person that others would love. I was also convinced that I had to earn God’s love. When I found that I couldn’t, I lost all hope in myself and in this distant and demanding God.
 
I agreed with what I had heard from others: I had to first learn to love myself before I could love others, even God. However, I hated Him because I felt that He hated me! Besides, I found it impossible to love myself. My deep feelings of self-contempt always overruled my efforts.
 
Gradually, my incredible Savior began to reveal to me, especially through His Word, that He loved me (Ephesians 3:19), even through my dysfunctionality and hatred of all others:
 
·       The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18-19)
 
Our Lord delights in raising the lowest, most unworthy of all people, as He revealed to Paul:
 
·       The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15-16)
 
If He loved the least worthy, Paul, perhaps He could even love me. I became convinced of this and began to see that life wasn’t about my worthiness but His!
 
I also began to learn that I will not be able to find any hope within myself. Everything within me is tainted by sin and its corruptive influence, but that no longer matters, not in the slightest:
 
·       I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
 
Oddly, by forsaking myself and any hope I had hoped to find in myself, I found freedom through trusting in our beloved Savior:
 
·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)
 
I am now free from trying relentlessly to prove myself worthy. My fleshly mind always attempts to draw me back into myself—my failures and inadequacies, and even my successes. However, I have forsaken it and find hope in Christ’s adequacy and love alone. (Philippians 3:2-9).

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