9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1John4:9-10
Brokenness makes us feel unlovable:
Our physical defects cause us to feel unattractive.
Our personality flaws make us insecure.
Our lapses ("accidental" sins) make us feel pathetic
and our willfull sins leave us feeling unforgivably guilty.
We cover for these things with inflated, deflated or alter egos. We push our perceived strengths over the top, often creating more pain and frustration. Sometimes we shrink on the inside, convincing ourselves that we can't cope when there are actually a lot of tools left in our toolboxes. Then there are the times that we try to be all things to all people, but being a chameleon on a smartiebox is exhausting.
The real key to overcoming brokenness is to realise that God offers us unconditional love. We are deeply and awesomely loved by God. We do not have to achieve lovability and we don't have to live up to an expectation.
John tells us that God loved us before we even thought of Him.
That God took the first steps toward us and when our brokenness got in the way, God paid the most costly price to set that brokenness aside.
This is the only sensible foundation for a healthy self-image:
It's not that I am kind-of ok.
It's not that "I am not really so bad you know."
It's that even if my face was rotted away by some wasting disease, even if I was a pathological liar, if I wasted every opportunity God gave me and if I spent my days hurting those around me, God would look past all of my appearances and bad performances and see inside me a person who He has made and loves. And He wouldn't love me any less than He loves Mother Theresa.
My lovability comes from God's decision and not my performance.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
