From my experiences in holding meetings and seminars throughout this country and elsewhere, I have come to realize that many people carry around with them some very bad attitudes and negative self-images. In fact, many of them have carried them so long they don't even realize they have them.
Every so often you and I need to conduct a self-inventory.
Have you done one lately? What do you think of yourself? What kind of relationship do you have with yourself?
No matter where you go or what you do in this life, you are always going to have to deal with yourself. There is no getting away from you.
If the Lord commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, He must have meant that it is as important to love ourselves as it is to love others. But it is not enough to love ourselves, we must also like ourselves.
Liking Yourself
You are one person you cannot get away from. If you don't like yourself, you have a serious problem on your hands.
I learned this truth several years ago while I was having a terrible time getting along with other people. I discovered the reason I was having so much trouble getting along with others was that I was not getting along with myself.
If you don't like you, you are going to have a hard time liking anyone else. You may pretend you do. But pretence doesn't alter fact. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.
Every one of us is supposed to be a powerhouse for God, living in balance and harmony within and without. In order to do that, we must have not only the right attitude toward others but also the right attitude toward ourselves. We need to be at peace with our past, content with our present, and sure about our future, knowing they are all in God's hands. We need to be stable, rooted and grounded in the love of God as expressed in His Son Jesus Christ.
Because we are rooted and grounded in love, we can be relaxed and at ease, knowing that our acceptance is not based on our performance or our perfect behavior. We can be secure in the knowledge that our value and worth are not dependent upon who we are or what we think or say or do. It is based on who we are in Christ Jesus.
Secure in our knowledge of who we are in Him, we can give up our masks and facades. We don't have to pretend anymore. We don't have to be phony. Instead, we are free to simply be ourselves — just as we are.
What a joy and a release to know that we don't have to go through life trying to impress others by our brilliance and perfection. When we make mistakes — and we will — we can make whatever changes we need to make without getting all upset with ourselves. We can relax in the Lord, confident that He will see that everything works out right in spite of our faults, our weaknesses, and our failures.
The key word in all this is relax. Let go and let God do what is necessary to fulfill His good and perfect plan for you.
You don't have to live day after day with something eating at you. Put your shame-based past behind you, and learn to live in the joy and peace that God has intended for you from the beginning.
Shame Defined
Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed; neither be confounded and depressed, for you shall not be put to shame. For you shall forget the shame of your youth, and you shall not [seriously] remember the reproach of your widowhood any more. Isaiah 54:4
In this chapter we have examined many different facets of shame and the problems it causes. But exactly what is shame in the biblical sense?
In the Old Testament, one of the Hebrew words used to express the idea of being ashamed means to “be confounded.”6
According to Webster's II New College Dictionary, to confound is: “1. To cause a (person) to become confused: BEWILDER. 2. To fail to distinguish: MIX UP (confound truth and lies) 3. To cause to be ashamed: ABASH … 4. To damn.”7
In turn, to damn is to “inflict loss upon … 1. To pronounce an adverse judgment on. 2. To bring about the failure of: RUIN … A. To condemn to eternal punishment: DOOM.”8
What a hideous word! No wonder the devil has so many people going around damning everything and everybody.
The point is that if a person is rooted in shame, if an individual is ashamed of himself, then he doesn't like himself. That doesn't just mean he doesn't like what he does; it means he doesn't like who he is.
Learn To Like Yourself
You and I have to learn to deal with our do separate from our who.
I don't do everything right all the time, but that doesn't mean I am not a child of God or He doesn't love me. I have made mistakes in my life, and I still make mistakes, but I still like myself.
If you like yourself even if nobody else does, you will make it. But when you start to like yourself, other people will begin to like you too.
Look at yourself in the mirror every morning and say, “I like you. You are a child of God. You are full of the Holy Spirit. You are capable. You have gifts and talents. You are a neat person — and I like you!”
If you do that and really believe it, it will work wonders in overcoming a shame-based nature.
To like ourselves does not mean we are full of pride — it simply means we accept ourselves as God's creation. We all need changes in our behavior, but accepting ourselves as the basic person God created is vital to our progress.
A Shame-Based Nature
Many people live under the curse of a failure spirit. They can never do anything they set out to do. They are always failing, always messing up, always being disappointed, discouraged, and depressed. They don't like who they are. The reason is that they have a shame-based nature.
For a long time I didn't like my personality. And since my personality is who I am, I didn't like me. I didn't want to be as bold and straightforward as I am. I didn't want to be direct and blunt.
For a long time I tried to be like my pastor's wife, who has a real gift of being sweet and kind and gentle. What I didn't realize is that some people are just born that way.
Because I didn't like my personality and who I was, I tried to change myself, instead of letting God change me. I tried to be like my pastor's wife. I tried to be the perfect woman, the ideal wife and mother who grew her own tomatoes and canned them, made jelly, sewed her family's clothes, and on and on.
It didn't work. I was trying to be something I'm not. Finally, I had to learn to just look myself in the mirror and say, “Joyce, I love you just the way you are, and I am going to get along with you. I am not going to be against you anymore.”
When a person has a shamed-based nature, as I did, it becomes the source or root of many complex inner problems like depression, loneliness and isolation, and alienation. All kinds of compulsive disorders are rooted in shame: drug, alcohol, and other chemical addictions; eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia, and obesity; money addictions like stinginess and gambling; problems with the mouth like cursing or uncontrolled gossip; sexual perversions of all kinds; the list is endless.
We have spoken, for example, of people who are such workaholics they can never enjoy life. Unless they are working day and night they feel irresponsible. In fact, some people are like I was; if they are enjoying themselves, they feel guilty about it.
Others feel guilty and blame themselves for everything that goes wrong in their lives.
One of my teaching materials is a two-part cassette album called “Breaking the Cycle of Addictions.” In it I explore many of these compulsive addictions that plague so many people today.
One of these compulsive addictions is perfectionism, which can also be shame-based. Some people are tormented by perfectionism because of abuse or some other negative situation in their past. They keep trying to be perfect in order to win the attention and affection they feel they were denied.
Such people set themselves up for failure. They set such high standards for themselves that when they fail, they feel bad about themselves. They make impossible schedules, then make themselves and everyone else miserable because they are constantly rushing around trying to meet them.
Our daughter Sandra struggled with perfectionism. She was such
a perfectionist she nearly drove herself crazy. She had such a rigid schedule that everything in her daily routine was timed down to the minute. One time she even caught herself counting the ironing, because she had a precise timetable for when each piece was supposed to be finished!
If anything like a phone call interrupted her exacting schedule, she became nervous and upset. If any of her carefully laid plans went awry, she made herself physically sick with fussing and stewing. To God's glory, He has set her free, and she is now a balanced person.
The problem with perfectionism is that since it is an impossible goal, it sets the person up for an inferiority complex. He becomes neurotic. He assumes so much responsibility that when he fails, he automatically assumes it is his fault. He ends up thinking he is flawed because he cannot meet his unreasonable goals or keep his unrealistic schedule.
Sandra thought something was wrong with her because she could not reach the unrealistic goals she set for herself. She finally learned that what was driving her was demonic pressure and not God's requirements at all.
Sometimes such perfectionism and neuroticism actually lead to self-hatred, which opens the way to all kinds of deep physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dangers.
All of these terrible things are examples of the bad fruit of a bad tree called shame. But there is an answer to all this. It is found in the Word of God.
A Twofold Recompense
Instead of your [former] shame you shall have a twofold recompense; instead of dishonor and reproach [your people] shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double [what they had forfeited]; everlasting joy shall be theirs. Isaiah 61:7
If you are convinced that you have a shame-based nature or that you are rooted and grounded in shame, that curse can be broken off of you through the power of God.
We have seen in Isaiah 54:4 and here in Isaiah 61:7 that the Lord has promised to remove the shame and dishonor from us so that we remember it no more. He has promised that in their place He will pour out upon us a twofold blessing so that we possess double what we have lost, and that everlasting joy shall be ours.
Take your stand on the Word of God. Become rooted and grounded, not in shame and dishonor, but in the love of Christ, being complete in Him.
Ask the Lord to work a healing miracle in your mind, will, and emotions. Let Him come in and fulfill what He came to do: heal your broken heart, bind up your wounds, give you beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, a garment of praise instead of heaviness, a double honor for a double shame.
Determine that from this moment on you are going to reject the roots of bitterness, shame, negativism, and perfectionism, and nourish the roots of joy, peace, love, and power.
Draw the bloodline of Jesus Christ across your life and boldly declare you are healed from the pains and wounds of your past and set free to live a new life of health and wholeness.
Continue to praise the Lord and confess His Word over yourself, claiming His forgiveness and cleansing and healing.
Stop blaming yourself and feeling guilty, unworthy, and unloved. Instead begin to say, “If God is for me, who can be against me? God loves me, and I love myself. Praise the Lord, I am free in Jesus' name, amen!”
9
Understanding Co-Dependence
“Co-dependence,” or “co-dependency” as it is often called, is a popular term these days, not only in Christian circles but in non-Christian circles as well.
In this chapter I would like to examine this problem from my personal perspective and share with you some scriptural truth about it that may help you learn to recognize it and deal with it more effectively.
Dependence and Addiction
In order to understand co-dependence, we must first understand dependence, which can be thought of as an addiction to behaviors, people, or things.
Though we often think of addiction as being related only to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or some other harmful substance, that is not the case. People can become addicted to all kinds of things, including other people. It is possible to be addicted to worry, excessive planning, and reasoning, control, spending, and a host of other things, both good and bad.
The problem with addiction is that it is evidence of a lack of balance.
As we saw in 1 Peter 5:8, as believers you and I are to be well balanced. Why? Because our enemy, the devil, roams around like a hungry lion, seeking someone to devour. That's why we are told in that verse to resist him in the faith.
I believe excess is the devil's playground. If there is any area in our lives in which we are excessive, Satan will use it to take advantage of us.
In general terms, an addiction is something that a person thinks or feels he must have, something he cannot tolerate being without and will do almost anything to get, including unwise, irrational things done in disobedience to God.
All addictions involve a certain amount of obsessive-compulsive behavior. Let's take a closer look at this term to see what it really means.
Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior
According to Webster, the word obsession refers to an often unreasonable preoccupation with something, or a compelling motivation to do something.1 The person who is obsessive about something thinks about it all the time and talks about it endlessly. His mind and his mouth are constantly focused on that one thing.
If he thinks and talks about it long enough, he becomes compulsive about it, meaning he feels compelled to do whatever it takes to obtain it.
Let me give you an example from my own life.
At one time I loved frozen yogurt. If I let myself think and talk about it long enough, I could become obsessed with it to the point of feeling compelled to get in my car and drive forty-five minutes just to get a three-ounce serving of it.
That is obsessive-compulsive behavior. It controlled me, I did not control it. I still like frozen yogurt, but in a balanced way.
Now we all do irrational things from time to time. But if our lives are marked by constant irrational actions done to satisfy our human urges and drives, then we have a problem. The devil will play on it, trying to convince us that we cannot control our thoughts and desires, and that there is no way for us to be delivered from our irrational, even harmful, obsessive-compulsive behavior.
It all starts in the mind and the mouth and springs from a lack of balance and self-discipline.
Answer for Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior
If the problem starts in the mind and the mouth, then the answer must come from the mind and the mouth!
Walking in God's best is much easier than we imagine. The best way to cure anything that ails us — mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually — is to get a list of Scriptures that deal with our particular problem or condition and begin speaking them from the mouth until revelation comes to the mind and heart.
Do you remember our remedy for feelings of being unloved? It was to start each day with the affirmation. “God loves me! He loves me!” The same holds true for anything that bothers or troubles us or causes us pain, worry, or misery.
If we would pay more attention to what is going on in our mind and what is coming out of our mouth, we would experience a great deal more happiness, peace, wholeness, and victory in our life.
Addictions are like any other mental, emotional, or physical problem we may have. They can be cured with the right treatment. Even obsessive-compulsive behavior can be healed through the power of the Holy Spirit and the application of the Word of God.
Withdrawal
Of course, any time an effort is made to overcome an ingrained addiction, there is going to be a certain amount of withdrawal that must be undergone.
When I made the decision to give up fretting, worrying, and reasoning, I went through terrible withdrawal symptoms. Every time I broke down and gave in to my desire to worry, fret, or reason, I felt better — for a while. Then I would feel worse because I had failed again and had to start all over.
The same principle applies to mental and emotional
addictions as to physical or chemical addictions. Just as a chain-smoker or an alcoholic or a drug addict has to endure a certain amount of withdrawal pain or discomfort in order to break his destructive habit, so we must go through a certain amount of pain or discomfort to break our mental or emotional addictions.
It may even be worse when the thing we are addicted to is another person or group of people.
“People, Places and, Positions”
… [What concern is it of yours?] You follow Me! John 21:22
Long before I ever heard the term “co-dependence,” I preached a message on dependence and addiction which I called “People, Places, and Positions.”
I preached that message because there was something specific going on in my life at the time I was having to deal with, and I thought others might be going through the same kind of experience.
I had become involved in a relationship with a group of people in a church in which I occupied a place of responsibility and held a position of importance. It was a place I wanted to be in, and a position I wanted to fill, among people I wanted to be associated with. The only problem was that God was calling me to let go of all that and move on to what He had for me next. I did not understand why I was having such a hard time being obedient to God.
Now I know the reason was I was dependent on those people, on that place, and on that position. My value and worth were determined by all those things. I was deriving my sense of security, esteem, and fulfillment from who I was with, where I was, and what I was doing. God was asking me to lay all that aside and take off to the backside of nowhere to start all over again.
Of course, there were promises involved, just as there were when God called Abraham: “If you will obey Me and do this thing I am asking of you, then I will broaden your tent and you will stretch out to the north, and to the south, and to the east and west, and I will bless you and make you a blessing to others …”