Celebrating God's Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance - Part IV

Celebrating God’s Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance – Part IV

Periods of pain and darkness resemble the intermission period of a play.  Darkness falls on the stage; the lights go out and the curtains are drawn.  The audience eerily waits for the next scene.  The darkness causes wholesale anxiety and possibly some expectation.  However, behind the curtain a lot of activity occurs.  The stage crew is busily rearranging the setting for the next scene.  So, it is with the periods of intermission in our lives.  God orchestrates His “good, pleasing and perfect” will during those times. He brings together all of the details to spur us toward further interpersonal development and spiritual growth.

The times when dawn seems to delay are most necessary in the life of the believer.  Indeed, “pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress.”  Without it, we cannot realistically expect to obtain any measure of spiritual growth.  Recently, I learned of a person who has no feeling in her right foot.  Pleasantly, she cannot feel any pain.  Unfortunately, she had injured her foot unawares and proceeded to walk and go about life without knowing it.  In time, an infection ensued and she nearly lost her foot.  Whereas her inability to feel pain appears to be a blessing, it has a greater potential to cause very serious problems.  I thought about the spiritual applications of her physical predicament.  Without periods of pain and darkness, we lack catalysts for change and mile markers on the road of spirituality.  Thus, I hope that we will learn to embrace fully these difficult challenges, knowing that God providentially embeds the resolutions within the adversities.

As it relates to the main theme of self-acceptance, the thirteenth through the sixteenth verses are the heart of the Psalm 139.  These verses totally overwhelm the psalmist!  First, he accepts that the Lord of universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, made him in His image.  God creates the psalmist’s “inmost being.”  The psalmist acknowledges that he is a spiritual being first and foremost.  Mysteriously and majestically, God creates the psalmist in his mother’s womb.  Actually, the he says that God “knit me together.”  In observing the knitting of a sweater for one of my children, I noted that the plans and designs were crucial to the outcome.  I also recognized that time and meticulous attention is essential to a successful outcome.  Likewise, Almighty God created us with a plan in mind for us.  Although He is Lord of the universe, He painstakingly utilized His creative abilities in making every one of us.  Even though there are more than six billion of us in the world, not one of us is the same.

I marvel at the fact that anyone would seriously conclude that he or she evolved from an ape that evolved from a prior specimen which evolved originally from an amoeba in the water.  The orthodoxy of science and the theory of evolution demands that one believes that one resulted from the good fortune of chaos, the actual collision and explosion of matter at the dawn of the universe.  Tens of billions of years later, the evolutionary processes yielded humankind as we currently exist.  In forceful contradistinction, the psalmist determines that his origins start with the Lord of the universe.  He is God’s handiwork!  Imagine the wholesale change in society if each person genuinely believes that he or she is a child of God with a divinely ordained birth and purpose in life.  Again, the psalmist’s reference to knitting alludes to God’s intelligent design in the creation of the universe as well as each member of the human family.

He offers praise to Almighty God because he is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  His creation is as majestic and mysterious as any of the wonders of nature.  It is as magnificent as any of the stars or solar systems.  It defies explanation.  It requires a lifetime of study and research to begin to comprehend God’s design in creating us in His image.  Yet, we face the difficulty of believing this word, the word of the Lord.  Do we believe it?  Again, I ask, “Do you believe it?”  I suspect that a lot of the aimlessness and brokenness that we observe in many people stem from their inability to believe that they have a divine heritage.  Most people probably do not see themselves as created in the image of Almighty God.  They do not realize that God, from the foundation of the universe, had them in mind.  That He chose to create them and put within them a divine spark of creativity and ingenuity. 

Celebrating God's Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance - Part III

Celebrating God’s Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance – Part III

Innumerable scriptures detail God’s unfailing and everlasting and faithful towards each of His children.  The following ten verses will encourage and empower you as you practice the preceding spiritual disciplines.

1.      Psalm 26:3

2.      Psalm 27:10

3.      Psalm 51:1

4.      Psalm 118:23

5.      Isaiah 1:18-19

6.      Isaiah 50:7

7.      Jeremiah 31:3

8.      John 3:16

9.      Romans 8:39

10.  2 Timothy 1:7

11.   1 John 4:18

12.  1 John 4:19

Before detailing the majestic and mysterious love that God shows us in Psalm 139, I wish to emphasize the ability of self-acceptance to obliterate doubt and negativity.  The lack of self-acceptance leaves you perpetually questioning yourself, fostering a very bleak outlook on life.  Instead of having faith and finding the positive aspects of any challenge, you assuredly discover the reasons why things cannot be done.  In addition, life’s greatest enemy, fear, strengthens these self-defeating and pessimistic views.  Underneath such “rational” doubt is a harmful cynicism fueled by the intensity of a lack of self-acceptance. 

The Psalter admonishes us to celebrate God’s handiwork in us.  We are “fearfully and wonderfully made!”  What a marvelous realization!  Modern science agrees;our DNA, teeth and fingerprints among other distinctive qualities demonstrate our inherent uniqueness.  Although there are more than six billion people on the earth, none of us are the same, not even identical twins.  Interestingly, God deserves a patent for each of us because of our individual uniqueness.  Nevertheless, Psalm 139 teaches us to accept ourselves as we are and in so doing accept God’s handiwork in us.

The opening six verses describe the psalmist’s intimate relationship with Almighty God.  The Lord of universe who hung more than a billion stars with separate solar systems and galaxies cares enough about the individual that He knows the psalmist’s sitting down, rising up, going out and coming in.  Most incredibly, the psalmist says that God loves Him enough to pay attention to his thoughts.  Before they are conceived fully, the Lord knows them from afar.  Overwhelmed by this reality, the psalmist declares that the sheer thought of this indescribable blessing and relationship as amazing.

Whereas the preceding verses demonstrate the psalmist’s belief in the omniscience of God, the next four verses, seventh through the tenth, speak of His omnipresence.  The psalmist can escape the presence of God.  There is no location in the infinite and expanding universe that provides a refuge.  Whether in heaven, hell or the farthest reaches of the ocean, the psalmist will assuredly find God.  The presence of God empowers the psalmist with faith, hope and comfort.  Should the psalmist “take the wings of the dawn” and embark upon a new enterprise, God will be right in the middle of it.  His “hand will guide me.”  “Your right hand will hold me fast.”  God’s love and concern for each of us leads Him to listen to all of us simultaneously.  Furthermore, it motivates Him to be present with the fortitude, peace and wisdom of His character despite the circumstances.  Do we really believe the word of the Lord?  Do we fully appreciate God’s unfailing love as embodied in the care and concern that He extends to us?  Do we accept and love ourselves as God loves us?

The eleventh and twelfth verses offer a very pleasant surprise.  Rhetorically, the psalmist ponders whether the darkness will hide him from the presence of God.  He wishes that the light of the day will become night around him.  Thus, he will escape completely the presence of God and thereby the necessity of obeying the will of God.  But, the psalmist immediately admits “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”  He finds tremendous hope and comfort in that realization.  Accordingly, we can cease and desist with the notion that God only works in the light of our lives.  In fact, these words assure us that He incredibly uses the bleak periods of doubt, anger, cynicism and hopelessness to transform us. 

Celebrating God's Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance - Part III

Celebrating God’s Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance – Part III

Innumerable scriptures detail God’s unfailing and everlasting and faithful towards each of His children.  The following ten verses will encourage and empower you as you practice the preceding spiritual disciplines.

1.      Psalm 26:3

2.      Psalm 27:10

3.      Psalm 51:1

4.      Psalm 118:23

5.      Isaiah 1:18-19

6.      Isaiah 50:7

7.      Jeremiah 31:3

8.      John 3:16

9.      Romans 8:39

10.  2 Timothy 1:7

11.   1 John 4:18

12.  1 John 4:19

Before detailing the majestic and mysterious love that God shows us in Psalm 139, I wish to emphasize the ability of self-acceptance to obliterate doubt and negativity.  The lack of self-acceptance leaves you perpetually questioning yourself, fostering a very bleak outlook on life.  Instead of having faith and finding the positive aspects of any challenge, you assuredly discover the reasons why things cannot be done.  In addition, life’s greatest enemy, fear, strengthens these self-defeating and pessimistic views.  Underneath such “rational” doubt is a harmful cynicism fueled by the intensity of a lack of self-acceptance. 

The Psalter admonishes us to celebrate God’s handiwork in us.  We are “fearfully and wonderfully made!”  What a marvelous realization!  Modern science agrees;our DNA, teeth and fingerprints among other distinctive qualities demonstrate our inherent uniqueness.  Although there are more than six billion people on the earth, none of us are the same, not even identical twins.  Interestingly, God deserves a patent for each of us because of our individual uniqueness.  Nevertheless, Psalm 139 teaches us to accept ourselves as we are and in so doing accept God’s handiwork in us.

The opening six verses describe the psalmist’s intimate relationship with Almighty God.  The Lord of universe who hung more than a billion stars with separate solar systems and galaxies cares enough about the individual that He knows the psalmist’s sitting down, rising up, going out and coming in.  Most incredibly, the psalmist says that God loves Him enough to pay attention to his thoughts.  Before they are conceived fully, the Lord knows them from afar.  Overwhelmed by this reality, the psalmist declares that the sheer thought of this indescribable blessing and relationship as amazing.

Whereas the preceding verses demonstrate the psalmist’s belief in the omniscience of God, the next four verses, seventh through the tenth, speak of His omnipresence.  The psalmist can escape the presence of God.  There is no location in the infinite and expanding universe that provides a refuge.  Whether in heaven, hell or the farthest reaches of the ocean, the psalmist will assuredly find God.  The presence of God empowers the psalmist with faith, hope and comfort.  Should the psalmist “take the wings of the dawn” and embark upon a new enterprise, God will be right in the middle of it.  His “hand will guide me.”  “Your right hand will hold me fast.”  God’s love and concern for each of us leads Him to listen to all of us simultaneously.  Furthermore, it motivates Him to be present with the fortitude, peace and wisdom of His character despite the circumstances.  Do we really believe the word of the Lord?  Do we fully appreciate God’s unfailing love as embodied in the care and concern that He extends to us?  Do we accept and love ourselves as God loves us?

The eleventh and twelfth verses offer a very pleasant surprise.  Rhetorically, the psalmist ponders whether the darkness will hide him from the presence of God.  He wishes that the light of the day will become night around him.  Thus, he will escape completely the presence of God and thereby the necessity of obeying the will of God.  But, the psalmist immediately admits “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”  He finds tremendous hope and comfort in that realization.  Accordingly, we can cease and desist with the notion that God only works in the light of our lives.  In fact, these words assure us that He incredibly uses the bleak periods of doubt, anger, cynicism and hopelessness to transform us. 

Celebrating God's Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance - Part II

Celebrating God’s Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance – Part II

Self-acceptance frees you from the incessant need to explain, justify, defend or apologize for yourself.  In trying to coerce people to like you, you easily fall into this trip.  The continuous need of explaining your heartfelt intentions demonstrates a lack of self-acceptance.  Justifying your actions is yet another indicator of this unfortunate way of being in the world.  Defensiveness is probably the clearest example of a person who has not achieved a requisite level of self-acceptance.  You do not need to substantiate your right to live. 

Additionally, self-acceptance enables you to receive constructive criticism more humbly and graciously.  In learning “to live and let live,” you allow others the freedom of choice and opinions.  People do not have to conform to your ideas and tastes.  Equally, you do not have to satisfy the arbitrary expectations of others.  You can simply be yourself as you afford the same rights and privileges to others.

Self-acceptance is a spiritual concept that flows from your inner being.  Again, it is not a matter of ego and predominant self-assertion.  People who have something to prove to the world will one day discover that the world does not care!  Nonetheless, self-acceptance develops within one’s heart, psyche, and will.  The acceptance of your physical appearance evolves after you complete the important spiritual work of cultivating self-acceptance within the other major dimensions of human existence.  Fundamentally, self-acceptance is an act of faith in the love of God toward you.  Similar to the unconditional love of a parent for a child, God loves us without regard for society’s expectations or assumptions of who is or is not worthy of love.  As we rightly relate to Him, He more greatly reveals His unconditional and unfailing love.  As we better internalize God’s love, we learn to accept ourselves without question.  Within our innermost selves, we determine that God’s love suffices.  Thus, we are fine just as He created us!

We cease playing in the harmful game of seeking the approval of others.  We shun the societal forces to conform to the collective consciousness of what is beauty, righteous, and acceptable.  We begin to make judgments based upon God’s word and assessment of us.

The development of self-acceptance depends greatly upon the daily practice of spiritual discipline.  The book of James refers to the Bible as a mirror, into which a person may look and get a glimpse of the God’s will.  In addition, you begin to see yourself  self as God sees you, as you daily look into the Bible.  Second, the apostle Paul prays for the church (Ephesians 1:15-18) that the eyes of their hearts will be opened so that they may be enlightened with the will of Almighty God.  We can pray for the willingness to see ourselves as God sees us.  Third, consistent meditation is one of the most worthwhile and beneficial spiritual practices.  In meditation, we listen with our hearts for the voice of the Holy Spirit.  Our silence allows for Him to speak directly to our situation.  We raise our mental and spiritual consciousness to a heavenly plane so that we may converse with our heavenly Father.  Fourth, meditation additionally offers a daily quiet time to reflect upon our choices, mistakes, successes and omissions.  Fifth, a journal allows for an extensive conversation with God.  It adds the benefit of enabling you to chart the growth and development of your self-acceptance.  Sixth, keeping a gratitude list fosters self-acceptance.  Such a list helps you avoid the pitfalls of only giving thanks for material acquisition and possessions.  Rather, you have the privilege of pausing and giving thanks for the people and relationships that make your life enriching and blessed.  Collective worship, the seventh spiritual discipline, should not be under-estimated in the large scheme of acquiring and persevering within self-acceptance.  Eighth, the number of new beginnings, Christian education and life-long learning afford you the best opportunity of maturing in self-acceptance.  As you expand the habit of learning about self-acceptance, it will naturally become a part of your outlook of life.

Celebrating God's Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance

Celebrating God’s Handiwork - The Essence of Self-Acceptance

Recently, I nudged alongside my children as they watched Beauty and the Beast for the one-millionth time.  I arrived at a great time.  Once again, my heart warmed while the beast and his beloved dances and the signature song plays in the background.  Afterwards, the beast summons his main steward and instructs him to allow the beauty to leave the castle and the grounds.  He does so out of his genuine love for her, realizing that one cannot imprison the object of one’s love. 

Then, a most intriguing conversation occurs between the steward, clock, teapot, saucer, candle and others.  Greatly surprised by the beast’s actions, they ask, “He has done what?”  After a pause, the teapot says, “This means that he has finally learned to love.”  In response, one of them asks, “Does this mean that the curse will now be broken?”  The teapot replies, “No, he must first learn to accept himself before that happens.”

Self-acceptance is the essential first step of self-love.  Practically speaking, self-acceptance means an unconditional belief in the unfailing and everlasting love of Almighty God towards one’s self.  It is the celebration of God’s unique handiwork in His purposeful and inerrant creation of you.  Self-acceptance acknowledges the particular gifts, abilities and personality that Almighty God graciously gave you. 

Self-acceptance transforms the fallacies of self-esteem and self-improvement into spiritual disciplines of personal development and spiritual growth.  Self-esteem, essentially, is a cloak for the ego.  You assert personal worth in comparison to the value that you put upon other people.  Because self-esteem only measures value in distinction to someone else, it permanently places you on the vicious merry-go-round of devaluing others in order to determine who you are. 

Likewise, self-improvement imprisons one to the perpetual nightmare of striving for perfection.  Defining fundamental characteristics that need improvement means you found deep-seated flaws.  The quest of self-improvement never ends because the reach for perfection is unattainable.  Similar to a contractor’s punch list of unfinished projects, one personifies a building forever under construction.  The divine soul of a child of God could never live peacefully in such a temple.  Feeling perpetually incomplete never allows rest and relaxation.  The tyranny of the “To Do List” reigns supreme in your consciousness.  Moreover, the joy of satisfaction perpetually escapes you, if you are constantly improving yourself.

In contradistinction, self-acceptance liberates you to celebrate your uniqueness in God’s eyes.  It encourages and empowers you to give thanks for the singular gift your life is to Almighty God and humankind.  Self-acceptance authorizes you to believe that Almighty God did not err in any aspect of His creation.  It denies the erroneous concept that your birth could possibly have been a mistake.  Rather, it insists that God was most purposeful in His design and intentions in your birth.  At your conception, a godly ordained plan for life began.  Finding happiness, joy and freedom in life largely depends upon your acceptance of God’s handiwork in creating you.

Because you are a spiritual being created in the image of God, you can accept that there are not any fundamental flaws in your makeup.  Having been “fearfully and wonderfully made,” you accept God’s plan for your life.  In so doing, you accept that you are loveable intrinsically.  You learn to look into the mirror and both like and love the person whom you see.  Admittedly, you also accept areas in your character that necessitate change in order to enable you to mature into the highest manifestation of the image of Almighty God.  Rather than engaging the superfluous grasp for personal perfection and social applause, you elect to travel the path of interpersonal development and spiritual growth.  Any changes you make emerge from a desire to please God instead of furthering an egotistical impulse toward self perfection.  Change occurs in order that you may more genuinely accept yourself. 

Accepting Other People's Incapacities - A Practical Method of Forgiveness

Accepting Other People’s Incapacities – A Practical Method of Forgiveness

The acceptance of one’s incapacities and limitations is a fundamental prerequisite to acquiring the willingness, humility and charity to accept these characteristics in others.  Genuine forgiveness depends primarily upon one’s ability to look beyond the character defects of the people who harmed us.  Perhaps, they were constitutionally incapable of behaving any other way.  Yet, as we accept our own shortcomings and failures, we are better able to pardon them in others.  One writer succinctly and compellingly suggests, “One should not condemn in others those traits that one so easily pardons within one’s self.”

The daily spiritual practice of self-evaluation immensely develops the willingness to accept people’s incapacities.  A stroll down memory lane reminds us of the myriad ways in which we failed to actualize our potential.  It also takes us back to the scene of sins and sites of transgressions against the holy laws of Almighty God.  These potent reminders comprise compassion and generosity when one falls prey to judging others.  Should we possess the opportunity and power to punish someone, then we should pause and reflect upon our past.  Our contemplation of yesteryear empowers us to handle people with a spiritual and practical balance, borne out of our own personal development and spiritual maturity.

The willingness to accept others as they are creates mutually beneficial and personally rewarding relationships.  It is difficult to relate to someone whom one judges incessantly.  In addition, it very hard to respect someone who persists in character defects, maintains morally questionable behavior and embraces ignorance because he is intellectually lacking.  Regardless of people’s faults, they are God’s children.  Accordingly, they deserve our love and respect.  God justly loves all of us without consideration for talents, natural endowments and pedigree.  He is “no respecter of persons.”  Likewise, we should relate to people as they are.  Rather than hoping they will become people who they are not, we accept our relatives, friends, colleagues and fellow church members as they are.  Parenthetically, I hasten to add that acceptance does not equate with endorsement.  Because we know that people are a certain way, it does not mean that we necessarily agree with their way of being in the world.  Nonetheless, acceptance coupled with respect and willingness usually allows for a meaningful relationship.

Another practical element of the willingness to accept people’s incapacities is the freedom to relinquish the thirst and need for punishment.  “Vengeance is mine says the Lord.”  Acceptance of people’s character flaws includes foregoing the necessity of penalizing them for their inherent failures.  Patience demands that we leave open the possibility that people may find the internal resources to change and grow.  As the ever present and all-kind Lord of the universe, Almighty God possesses the perfection to administer the proper punishment to any situation.  He does it according to His revealed Word and in His majestic and mysterious way.  Therefore, we can accept simultaneously people’s shortcomings and realize that they will face the consequences of their choices.

Should we be honest, many us have not begun to actualize our potential.  Actually, we might have many more “incapacities” than those persons whom we disparage.  There are talents that God graciously gave us at birth that lie dormant within us.  We have disappointed people; we do so now.  We have behaved in morally questionable ways.  In essence, we have not been the people who we have become.  Accordingly, we must extend to others the same patience, love, forgiveness and compassion that we eagerly demanded for ourselves.  A significant part of loving people, generally, and tough personalities, specifically, is forgiving their incapacities regardless of the types and numbers.  No one is perfect.  If we look for perfect people to love, we look in vain.  God loves us as we are with the perfect intention of transforming us with His love into the character of Christ.  As He demonstrates His love by overlooking our limitations, He models for us the way to love complex people whose words and deeds often contradict each other.

Meditation Upon Ephesians 3:20

Meditation Upon Ephesians 3:20

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20 is one of the most influential verses in the New Testament.  It comforts and challenges the believer.  The verse reminds us the awesome and infinite abilities of the Creator of the universe surpass our mental capacities of logic and imagination.  Interestingly, He deposits that incredible power within each believer.  From birth in which we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:130-16), we are the gracious recipients of God’s creative power.  However, we face the daily challenge of surmounting any fear that plagues us.  Can we find the faith and trust to genuinely rely upon God in order to access and utilize this majestic and mysterious internal fortitude?

In the King James Version of the Bible, Ephesians 3:20 reads, “Now to Him who can do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”  The characterization, “exceedingly abundantly,”  richly describes the abilities of the infinite architect of the universe.  God’s only limitations are the ones He chooses to place upon Himself. 

The Bible primarily discloses God’s faithful and eternal love for humankind whom He made in His image.  God limits Himself according to His unconditional love for us.  He adheres faithfully to the covenant He made in Eden, repeated throughout the Old Testament and eternally sealed through the redemptive work of Christ.  As a natural extension of God’s limitless love, He graciously utilizes His infinite power to bless us.  He is able to do more than we can conceive.  Furthermore, He can do more than we ask.  What an amazing thought, considering that everyone has an endless wish list.  Yet, God can do more than we envision.  Given our normal flights of fantasy, it is simply staggering to think that God is able to even satisfy outrageous desires.

Do we possess the courage to ask or imagine?  I suspect that many believers pass over this verse.  It seems so farfetched.  “Yeah, what a nice thought, Pollyanna!”  Should we find the faith and courage to rely upon its promises, we will travel spiritually and existentially to unimaginable vistas.  Such heights may include financial blessings and material acquisition.  More significantly, those pinnacles are places of love, truth, justice, joy, and peace, the enduring wealth of life.  These eternal riches are incalculable.  Most unfortunately, many believers never obtain them because they simply lack the courage to ask.

Imagine your life without fear, doubt, disease, sin, and any other limitations that impede your ability to find inner healing and wholeness.  Your dreams and goals are more than wishful thinking.  They become real!  God is able to do it!  If you steadfastly believe Him by obeying His word and fiercely trust Him by following His guidance, you will live the “summum bonum,” the good life.  Faith asserts an unequivocal belief in the word and abilities of God.  Trust, practically speaking, means acting upon your faith.  If you can imagine it, it is yours. 

In the most practical way, God accomplishes His work through us.  The second part of the verse declares He works immeasurably “according to His power that is at work within us.”  In order to realize the blessings and promises of this verse, we partner with God.  Daily self-denial yields the power of the Holy Spirit to achieve resolutions to our problems.  Prayer is not magic nor is it wishful thinking.  When we pray, we ask God for wisdom, strength and willingness to take the first steps.  Additionally, we ask Him to change holistically our attitude and character.  Prayer is an appeal to receive graciously the fortitude that emerges from the enduring presence of God.  As we genuinely rely upon Him, the Holy Spirit gives us the dynamism to accomplish divine purposes and plans. 

This week, I pray that you will commit this awesome verse to your memory.  Moreover, I pray that you will uncritically accept its divine promises and live into them.