Names

Today wasn't much better than yesterday.  In the course of these two bad days, I noticed something about myself that comes forward sometimes, but much, much more when I have a bad day (or two): when I'm frustrated with myself, I'll say things to myself like, "That was silly," or, "You're acting like a child," or, "I was never very good at that anyway; why are you surprised that that didn't go well?"

And I also realized how harmful that is.  Saying that to myself never made myself feel better; instead, I always felt worse afterwards.  God loves us.  He loves me.  Not only does He want us to love others and encourage others, but He also wants us to do the same to ourselves.  He created me, sacrificed Himself for me, and He doesn't want me to bring what He created down with negativity and sin.

It's not that I didn't know that before, of course.  I'm not sure I've thought, at least recently, about applying those principles to yourself, as well--which in many ways is harder than applying it to anyone else, because you know all about yourself and the mistakes you've made and the shameful secrets you have.  But God knows us even better than we know ourselves; and if He says we're lovable, who are we to argue?

I don't normally have too much of a problem with excess self-criticism or self-negativity (or at least I don't think I do).  But it's really skyrocketed between me and myself in the past two days.  That got me thinking first of all about how harmful it really can be, and secondly about faith disciplines in general.  Most of them are easy to practice when your life is going well; it's so easy to be thankful and generous and so on when you're happy and contented.  But they're so much harder to practice when you're tired, or sick, or depressed, or angry, or most of all when you can't feel God in your life.  But that doesn't mean He doesn't want you to try.  So that's my prayer for myself tomorrow: that I can act as God would want me to act, even when I don't feel like it or can't feel Him.