Where God's Word Meets Our Mess
Instead of doing the right thing and choosing to be friendly to the new girl, I stood in the church pew and watched her leave the building. Sure, I felt a twinge of guilt about ignoring her. But I just didn’t feel like talking to her. It wasn’t my responsibility to be the welcoming committee. I wasn’t obligated to speak to her. At least, those were the excuses that I formulated.
Unfortunately, insecurity is just a part of life. There’s no way to avoid it or delay it. We can’t expect it to go away when we get older, and we can’t better ourselves so that we no longer experience it. It’s simply a consequence of the Fall when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. But there is something significant that you should know about insecurity that you've probably never heard before.
Last week’s post included three things that will wreck our self-esteem. But there are lots of things that we (perhaps unconsciously) choose to do that damage our self-esteem. Here are a few more of them.
But it’s incredibly common to have low self-esteem. Sadly, many of the things that we choose to do actually lower our self-esteem without us even realizing it! There are a few common behaviors that generally lower our self-esteem. Hopefully, recognizing these behaviors will help you avoid them! Your self-esteem will probably get wrecked if you do any (or all) of these three things.
To be honest, I’ve struggled with idolatry for years. I want to believe that I simply have chronic idolatry, but I know that’s just a lie from Satan. Whether I want to admit it or not, idolatry doesn’t just “happen” to me; it's a choice. I choose to worship idols. I choose not to let them go. I choose to serve them when I should serve Christ.
Don’t get me wrong—I love my phone. I love that I can text, make calls, go online, make notes, and set timers using one portable device. It can be used for great things, from tithing online to staying in touch with missionaries. But when we use our phones rather than pay attention to the people we're with, we communicate that we care more about our phones (and ourselves) than them.
Though some people can easily fight lies about their body image, I can’t. Because of my history with an eating disorder, these lies feel incredibly real to me. The devil’s tormenting seems too great to bear sometimes. Unfortunately, I’m often quick to believe his lies because I lack the motivation to fight against them. But this leads me to become depressed and frustrated.
Usually, Thanksgiving is the time of year when we share what we're thankful for. But in this post, I decided to do something different. I'm going to discuss three things that I'm not thankful for (plus offer some encouragement with you if you, too, aren't thankful for them).
But the truth is that the shocked, unable-to-respond, shunning Christians are probably hiding something from you, too. Even though their struggles are as real as yours, it’s unlikely that they’ll share them. As I talked about in Part 1, being authentic is hard. It’s easiest to hide because other Christians might judge us or reject us if we’re honest.
Tizzie's Tidbits of Truth 