{Be Confident} Like He Loves Us

She could never be a leader. She is so scatter-brained. She isn’t smart enough. Her past sins are too great. God could never use her.

If I were talking about someone else, that would be pretty hateful and judgmental of me, huh? But these are things I think to myself pretty frequently, and for some reason, I don’t stop and consider it hateful. I’ll just start with the ugly truth.

I don’t always love myself.

We’re all familiar with the “golden rule.” In Mark 12:31, we are commanded to “love your neighbor as yourself.”   We’re taught to go out and be a light in the world. To BE God’s word. To be examples of His peace and show His love to the world.

There’s just one small catch to all of this though, isn’t there? What happens if our days are spent nit-picking and questioning every little thing about our past, our looks, our personality, our work? Honestly, even on my best day, I can still feel ashamed, rejected, and unworthy at different points. I can still focus more on my failures and short-comings more than anything good about myself. And I have to ask, how can I be called to love on others and show grace when I’m not even doing a good job of that with myself? How can I know any peace when I’m always at war with myself?

The honest answer is, I can’t. It’s impossible to genuinely and whole-heartedly give away something I don’t have.

In discussion about loving people that can rub us the wrong way, one of the sweet ladies in my Wednesday night Bible study mentioned that she tries to remember that –

“maybe they just have a wounded heart.”

And all at once – like a sudden, necessary thump on the head – I realized. Just like the people I strive to love and forgive on a daily basis, I am also human, and I am also wounded. Don’t I deserve the same love I would show that person?  Don’t I deserve the same forgiveness and understanding as I would strive to give them?

Friends, let’s lay it out there. We are broken and imperfect beings. And it’s always so much easier to see this in others before we see it in ourselves, isn’t it? I can be so hard on myself – my own worst critic, really – and in this hustle for perfection, I just forget. It’s that simple. I forget.

By focusing on these “failures,” it’s so easy to forget all the ways in which we DO shine for Him. All the ways in which, on an almost daily basis, we make small ripples in a never-ending body of water that grow and grow and go on and on. I’ve had to ask myself, “Courtney, do you honestly think God is looking down on you in disappointment over your physical appearance? Do you truly think He loves you less because your face turns as red as an apple when you talk in front of a crowd? Do you think God doesn’t believe in you because you are a sinner? Do you think because you are flawed and imperfect that you don’t make a difference?”

The resounding answer is “no.” We are each deliberately and uniquely created in God’s own image, and what reassurance to know that He makes no mistakes! We are wholly loved by an amazing God that sees no flaws in us – only our humanness. And His mercy, His love, and His grace are new to us every, single day without fail.

It’s almost unbelievable, isn’t it? As broken, as failing, as corrupt, as blind as we are, He loves us just the same. He knows our flaws and our hearts, and he wants us to use them for His glory!

We can never know true peace until we learn to accept ourselves for the flawed, unique, and intentionally crafted people that we are. With that being said – I challenge you today.

Choose to accept yourself. Choose to forgive yourself. Choose to know you are worthy. Choose to love wholly and without exception.

Choose today to love like He loves you. 

– Courtney