Self-Condemnation = Unbelief

My friend and I were visiting recently about our mutual struggle with self-condemning thoughts. The next day she wrote me this letter and I thought it might bless you (as it blessed me!). Hope so!

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Dear Tara,

Thank you for opening your home and your heart to us yet again. I know you were weary, beaten down, and discouraged. Please know that your honest and anguished sharing was actually used mightily in my heart.

I have been thinking today about the habit of self condemnation. As you say, it is not “Christianly.” We can look to our past and see many reasons why we may have developed the habit. Some of these reasons were outside of ourselves, like alcoholic parents and the shame and insecurity that can result. Some of these reasons are within, since we are only too painfully aware just how much sin our hearts harbor. In these ways, self condemnation seems logical, even honest.

After all, our brain’s synapses just fire off that way from tired repetition. But then as Christians, we know that in Christ we are new creations, redeemed, fully loved and accepted. We know that our failure to live joyful and grace filled lives is not God glorifying.

The sinful cycle seems so impossible to break, try as we might.

What seems clearer to me today is that my habit of self condemnation is not simply an ugly and sinful thought pattern. It is more honestly labeled unbelief, at least as practiced by me. When I choose to indulge in self loathing, I am not simply temporarily “forgetting” God’s promises and who I am in Christ. My honest confession is that I think I am somehow dividing myself in my own stubborn and darkened mind.

Yes, most of me is a Christian, but I am clinging to, even cherishing, a part of my old nature. I am entitled to be miserable; it is comfortable and familiar. Also, I am protected from criticism which I actually deserve because I deliver it to myself first, mixed always with some soothing self pity. I am rebelling, seeking to avoid God’s just rebuke by substituting my own. I am somehow saying that part of me operates independently, part of me is unreached, and by implication, unreachable, by God.

This is a lie that finds a home in my heart because I have failed to truly and wholly beleive that Christ’s atoning work on the cross was sufficient. How pitifully arrogant! At the heart of my self loathing is pride: an insidious and evil pride that says God hasn’t really entirely succeeded in conquering me.

My prayer is that God might actually use my sinful habit of self condemnation to defeat this destructive stronghold in my life. That is, I am praying that all of my hatred and loathing will be directed to my prideful unbelief. Those overused synapses can fire away for God’s glory, not to perpetuate my own self indulgent self criticism.

Thanks for listening. Have a safe, comfortable, and joyful weekend as you travel again to teach, Tara.
You are a treaure to many, including me. Your friend —

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What insights!
What grace.

I wonder when she’ll start her own blog??? 🙂