Angel Waves

All around us are reminders of who we think we are meant to be. For me, it is the good mothers, the young entertainers on television, and the strong women of God who seemingly have their spiritual life all together. Often I sit and reflect on where I am now in my life and when I get caught up in that, all too often I come up short of my own expectations. Even with all this going on in my head, I do not seem to muster up the drive to meet not only my own standards of what my dreams should be but that of the world either. Honestly, that is way too much work!

So instead, being a chronic underachiever has helped me with a few important lessons throughout my life. One important thing I have learned is that dreams change with age, and our perception of ourselves does too. Now that I have admitted to being an underachiever as well as being old, let us quickly get to the lesson I want to focus on before I seriously reconsider due to lack of self esteem.

Actually that is what I want to touch on here, self –esteem. Or rather, God-esteem. You see, there is something seriously wrong with having self-esteem in the first place; and it is the fact that self is the focus. To the world, having self-esteem is the beginning of a successful and fulfilling life. If you have self-esteem you can do anything you put your mind to and have the confidence to carry it through. Those of you who believe this, please don’t die, because eternity is going to be hell. The reason is, that kind of thinking leads to a very self centered lifestyle, one that ultimately puts you in the center of every move you make. That is the type of lifestyle that separates us from God’s will for our lives.

God did not tell Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because he wanted to be controlling and mean, He didn’t want His children to be so self aware that they would never look beyond who they were and see all that God had for them. All that God has for us now. Self centeredness is one of those traits that tend to grow from generation to generation. It has been growing in strength in this world since the time of Adam, and has reached dangerous levels in the world’s youth today. There is no way to have self-esteem without having some level of self centeredness. So do we simply chalk this up to human nature and continue teaching our children, our congregations and those we have influence over that it is ok to have self-esteem as long as it doesn’t get out of control?

Consider the story of Moses for a moment. He was brought up in an Egyptian home even though he was a Hebrew. He was taught how to be a Prince – a successor to the throne and I would bet, a gentleman. He was taught to be self confident and hold his head high, remember the family he represented. That is until something deep inside of him stirred and made him realize that it was those very self serving motives that kept the children of Isreal in bondage to the Egyptians. That self-esteem was where his confidence and his loftiness came from. It was where Pharaoh’s stubbornness came from when God wanted to free the Hebrew slaves. God wanted that self-esteem out of Moses. Therefore, in order to do that God orchestrated Moses’ departure from Egypt – straight into the desert. From Prince of Egypt to sheep herder in a very short time. In fact, Moses became so lacking in self-esteem that God Himself had to build Moses God-esteem up quickly.

It says in Exodus chapter 3 starting with verse 10:

¹⁰ Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

This is a man that used to dine at the same table as Pharaoh. But I love what God says to him next:

¹² So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
¹⁴ And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”

That my dear readers is God confidence. Simply put, when you are confident in who God is, there is no need to have any self involvement. Philippians 4:13 says:

¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

When we put ourselves aside and all our worldly dreams of grandeur, all of the expectations we put on ourselves and the expectations of the world around us and seek out through prayer and reading The Word, God’s desire for our lives, we grow. We move beyond the pettiness of day to day life and we start to see the needs of others before our own needs. We start to walk where Christ walked, being the sacrifice so that others may come to know His love and the eternal reward for having God Confidence. We become successful and have a life of meaning as well as our own eternal reward.

So the next time you start to tell your children or a friend that they lack self-esteem, remember to tell them how much of a good thing that really is.