Spiritual Self-esteem
A guy had been feeling down for so long that he finally decided to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist asked him a few questions, then sat thinking in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, he looked up and said, I think your problem is low self-esteem. It is very common among losers."
You can't touch it, but it affects how you feel. You can't see it, but it's there when you look at yourself in the mirror. You can't hear it, but it's there every time you talk about yourself. What is this important but mysterious thing? It's your self-esteem! It's how much you value yourself and how important you think you are. It's how you see yourself and how you feel about your achievements.
Self-esteem isn't bragging about how great you are. It's more like quietly knowing that you're priceless. It's not about thinking you're perfect — because nobody is — but knowing that you're worthy of being loved and accepted.
Good self-esteem is important because it helps you to hold your head high and feel proud of yourself and what you can do. It gives you the courage to try new things and the power to believe in yourself. It lets you respect yourself, even when you make mistakes. And when you respect yourself, others respect you, too.
Having good self-esteem is also the ticket to making good choices in life. If you think you're important, you'll be less likely to follow the crowd. If you have good self-esteem, you know that you're smart enough to make your own decisions.
Low self esteem can be very destructive to life. Self-blame, self-criticism, or constantly putting others down by making them feel guilty, are some of the signs of low SE. Other signs of low self esteem are over eating or over working, playing the victim, blaming others for your problems, not taking responsibility for your life, turning power over to outside agents to make decisions for you, and then feeling victimized if the results and not to your liking.
Black and white thinking or the inability to understand nuances and complexity of life are also signs of low self esteem. Low self esteem has a lot to do with how you were raised at home. If you were always told that you were no good, you will never amount to anything or that you are a loser, you are likely to have a low self esteem.
If you had a domineering parents who never valued your opinion you are likely to have low self esteem. If you were abused emotionally or sexually you will more than likely develop low self esteem. I had a chaplain in my class who was sexually abused by her brother. Today she has trust issues with men, is over eating, she is 300plus pounds, is depressed all the time. Her life is a mess. She is barely functioning in life.
So far, I have been talking about psychological self esteem. There is something called spiritual self esteem which many people don't think about. Everything I mentioned so far about pys. Self esteem is also applicable to sp. SE
I think majority of the religious people suffer from low spiritual self esteem. So what are some of the signs of low sp. SE? Think about your relationship to God. If you believe that God is this supreme being and you are this lowly, unworthy sinner, totally dependent and completely helpless, you are suffering from low sp. SE.
I have such a hard time singing Amazing grace. I like most of it,but the second line is hard to sing. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a WRETCH like me. Imagine a parent telling a child every day, that he is a wretch, that he is a loser, that he is never going to amount nothing, how is that child going to grow up? We will call that emotional abuse from a parent.
When the church calls us unworthy and wretched sinners, that is a form of spiritual abuse. If you study the creation story in the book of Genesis, you will find that the human being was created in the image and likeness of God. The human being that is created in God's image is good. As a matter of fact, at the end of each day of creating, the phrase used is: “And god saw that it was good.” But at the end of the sixth day of creating, after creating man and woman, the phrase is: “And God saw that it was VERY good.” Why would you want to call something that God created as very good, unworthy and wretched?
Also at the end of the creation story, we see God giving Adam and Eve full authority over His creation. God tells them to take over and manage the earth that he had created by giving “dominion over everything on earth.” In other words, God was inviting the humans to be co-creators with God.
Instead of being co-creators with God, we would rather be “wretched sinners unworthy of god!
I ma reminded of the story of a mild-mannered man who was tired of being bossed around by his wife. He went to see a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist told him that he needed to build his self-esteem, and so gave him a book on assertiveness, which he read on the way home. He had finished the book by the time he reached his house.
The man stormed into the house and walked up to his wife.
Pointing a finger in her face, he said, "From now on, I want you to know that I am the man of this house, and my word is law! I want you to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I'm finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert. Then, after dinner, you're going to fill the tub so I can relax. And when I'm finished with my bath, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?"
And the wife said: "The funeral director."
Now that is not self esteem; that is arrogance. That is not what I am talking about when it comes to our relationship with God. I am only asking you to take your rightful place in the world as co-creators with god, a status that God has given to us, graciously. God will be so delighted if we claim that role in life.
When my son Tommy turns 25, if he is still living at home, uneducated, unemployed and totally dependent on me, I would be very upset. Every time I give him a few dollars, if he thanks me and praise me and tells me that I am the best dad in the world, I will be disgusted. If he asks my opinion before he does anything, I will be annoyed. I will be disappointed in my under achieving, uneducated, unemployed son. I want him to grow up. I will be so happy, if he takes responsibility for his life. I will be the happiest if he he succeeds in life independently of myself.
Now think of your relationship to God. God will be happy when we grow up spiritually. God the father will be delighted when we, his children, develop a healthy spiritual self esteem.
A sign of low spiritual self esteem is the blind allegiance to traditions; it is called traditionalism. Following a religious tradition without thinking about it or asking questions about its meaning and relevance today. The debate about wearing burqa by moslem women in France is a case in point. They want to cover their face,because it is in the Quran. But Quran was written in the 5th century. They don't ask questions, because it is written in the holy book.
Few weeks ago. One of our chaplains went to the house where this lady had died, at 7 PM. The family wanted the body to be picked up by the funeral home, only after 11 PM because, they had a son arriving from Houston by a 10 PM flight. My colleague did not want to wait in the house three hours past his shift so he told the family that he was going to get another chaplain to come to the house, to relieve him. But the family had a strange requirement of this chaplain. If it is a female chaplain coming to replace him, she should not be in the middle of her menstrual period.
I was the chaplain who went to replace my colleague. The patient who died was a member of a religion called Zorastrianism. You may not have even heard about that religion, let alone what they believe in. It is a religion that was founded in Persia, modern day Iran, by a man named Zoraster. One day he was taking a bath in the river, and he had this revelation from God, and he wrote them down in a book called Avesha and the people who believed that book became his followers and it became a religion.
When Islam took over Iran, the Zorastrians were dispersed. Majority of them ended up in India. In India, Zorastrians are called Parsis. They are concentrated in Mumbai. They are some the most successful businessmen in India and the most westernized minority religion in India. Zorastrianim is a dying religion and there are only about 450K Parsis in the world today.
The basic tenet of that a religion is GOOD THOUGHTS, GOOD WORDS, GOOD DEEDS. Not a bad doctrine. But their death and burial customs are kind of strange by 21st cent, standards. Ideally, the dead body should not be buried or cremated. It should be eaten by vultures. I am not making this up, In close knit Parsi communities in India, they have something called a tower of silence. It is a concrete structure about 20 feet tall and they will leave the dead body on top of it, to be eaten by vultures.
According to their religion, a menstruating woman is impure and she cannot be near a dead body. It is a religious custom based on purity laws. We have that law in the OT. According to the book of Leviticus, A woman is unclean during her monthly period. A woman is unclean for 33 days if she gives birth to a son, and unclean for 66 days, if she give birth to a female child. Then she has to go to the temple to be purified by cleansing ceremony, performed by a male priest, of course.(Lev. 12)
So, I know where it is coming from: The holy book, in this case, Avesa, the holy book of the Parsi religion. But why follow that blindly today when women's dignity and equality are the norms? I say blindly, because it makes no sense in 21st century America. I think there are two main reasons: Ignorance and fear. Many people just don't know much about their religion. They have not made any serious attempt to study and understand the teachings of their religion for themselves. They blindly follow what they read in the holy book or hear from preachers. I think, they are also afraid to question these traditions, because, they fear God's punishment.
We were also told that our duty is to protect and defend those beliefs and rituals, even without fully understanding them. We were told that it is the devil who makes you or question or challenge those beliefs.
One of the things that caught my attention several years ago was a pamphlet from Rev, James Kennedy's church. It clearly stated that no one, except those in the hierarchy of the church, were allowed to interpret the Bible, because they had not received proper training. It struck me as a prohibition and an attempt to control a monopoly... a self-proclaimed "superior cast" prohibiting in the "inferior crowd" to try to have a direct relationship with God.
The lack of spiritual self-esteem leads to the repeated playing of an internal recording inside our heads that goes something like this, "I am a wretched sinner; If ask questions about the scriptures, god would be angry with me; I cannot possibly have a direct relationship with God. I have to go through someone who is a mediator between unworthy human beings like myself and God. I have to go through the pastors of my church, through the Pope. They are the ones who know. They are closer to God. I am just a sinner. I don't know anything."
In Jn 15: 15 Jesus said; I no longer call you servants, Instead, I have called you friends.” Now, friendship is about equality and mutual respect, not slavish submission and feelings of unworthiness. In Mt. 5:48,: Jesus said: “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” Let us heed Jesus invitation to be his friends and co-creators with God.
