To Thine Own Self... Be NICE!!!

This was the lesson God taught me this week. To stop treating myself in a way that was mean and critical and merciless and grace-less. It's not a new concept for me, but God helped me see it from a completely new perspective. Let me explain... On Thursday night as I was heading to Celebrate Recovery I was feeling disgusted with myself for being flaky and some other things that I don't even remember now. Whatever it was, I wasn't liking myself very much and I was not encouraging myself with what I was thinking. And that's when God broke into the conversation going on in my head and He told me to STOP! Stop doing to yourself what you would never want to do to anyone else! (Wow!) For example, if I am at church and somebody comes to me and shares how discouraged they are, what do I do? I try to encourage them and remind them to ask God to reveal the truth and to listen to Him and that He loves them and that He will always help us and to resist the enemy's lies, etc, etc, etc... I would never jump in and agree that yes, they really are hopeless and never going to change and really quite a disappointment and so why do they even keep trying because, good grief, what a mess they are--it's no wonder they're discouraged! Could you imagine????? How would you feel if somebody did that to you? How would you feel if somebody did that to your child????? (I would be so angry!!!!!) What God was challenging me about was this: If I would never say it was okay for anyone else to be spoken to like that, why was it okay to speak to myself like that??? (It wasn't!) So instead of agreeing with what the enemy wants me to believe about myself (lies, lies, lies!), I am asking for God to keep showing me when I am treating myself in a way that is unacceptable for any child of His. And when I feel discouraged, I am going to remind myself of the things I would remind anybody else of: If we are believers in Jesus, we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us and we can do everything through Christ who gives us strength and we are LOVED VERY MUCH! Like I said... not new information. Just a renewed perspective. J, Melissa