You: The Next Chapter

Remember, direct quotes are in italics. And for ease of reading & deciphering which are Young's words and which are mine, I'll change the color when I interject my own thought.


We saw in chapter 3 that we can derive our self-esteem from one of three sources: from God, from others, or from ourselves. It is our choice [but]if we choose to build our self-esteem from others or from ourselves, we're choosing a very limited, narrow perspective. Let's see what God says about us - how He feels about His children:

What is man that you are mindful of him,
The son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels;
You crowned him with glory and honor
And put everything under his feet?
In putting everything under him,
God left nothing that is not subject to him. Heb 2:6b-8a NIV

If we could look through God's eyes into our heart of hearts, many of us would see a huge pile of cheap, flimsy paper crowns representing the worldly things that have failed to give our lives meaning and purpose. We waste our lives trying on these paper crowns trying to look good for others, elevating ourselves in the corporate world, or obtaining as much stuff as we possibly can, thinking those crowns will give us the confidence we so desperately crave.


The truth of the matter is this: If we opt to take our self-esteem cues from God amazing things will start to happen in our lives. Too many of us miss out on the real deal - the crown of dignity, beauty, and significance [that] God has tailor-made for each person.

God's process for rebuiling a damaged self-esteem is not instantaneous or easy. It takes work on our part. Achieving supreme self-esteem is a three-step process: (1) opening up to the truth, (2)asking for help, and (3) diving into God's best. Opening ourselves up to God and allowing Him to speak the truth into our lives is scary! Things are often revealed that are painful to face. But by doing it, the pain will eventually go away - not just be dulled or numbed.


We need to close the fictional books that are full of the words of others, status seeking, and other stuff. We've been relying on them for our self-worth rather than turning to the one book of reality; the Bible. It is time to open up & subject ourselves to and rely on the evidence found in God's Word concerning who we are and how much we matter.

The idea is to review the overwhelming evidence of God's love so that we will be able to reject the harmful myths from our past and believe the truth; that we matter more to God than we could ever fathom. Consider the parables in Luke 15, where Jesus speaks about a lost object and the owner's joy once the object is found: the shepard who loses and then finds one of his 100 sheep, a woman who loses one of 10 coins and rejoices when the coin is back in her possession, and the story of The Prodigal Son.

Through these stories, Jesus is saying that we are like the sheep, coin, and the son. We matter to Him. We are lost, but what rejoicing takes place in heaven when we're found! It is up to us to believe the truth of God's Word which tells us so many different ways that we matter to Him. The other option is to believe the lies we've heard. Receiving and believing the truth about ourselves is the foundation for the next level of the building process, which is help.

It is my hope that I will soon be ready to dive into the truth, leaving the lies I've believed about myself far behind me.