By Chris WittsWednesday 31 Jan 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Have you ever felt ashamed, inadequate, incompetent, insignificant or inferior?
Have you felt like a loser? Of course you have. We all have. It’s one of the most painful and disabling feelings that humans get. To accuse someone of being a loser is a big insult. It’s a very hurtful comment… Its closely linked with “I feel like a failure” which is another hurtful and demoralising statement. Each of us fail somewhere in our lives. In point of fact, some of the great figures of history failed as a part of their life journey … Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio only after he tried 200 unsuccessful ones. When asked how it felt to have failed so often, he said, “I never failed 200 times in my life. I just discovered 200 ways not to vaccinate for polio”. Or how about Winston Churchill? When asked how he became such a significant leader, one who was able to motivate a nation in the midst of some incredibly difficult circumstances, Churchill said it was the time he had to repeat a grade in elementary school. And then there is Sir Edmund Hillary, the first known climber to summit Mt. Everest, he did so after several failed attempts. After one “failure,” Hillary is reported to have stood at the base of this giant mountain and shake his fist at it, saying, “I’ll defeat you yet because you are as big as you’re going to get, but I’m still growing.” He had a great attitude didn’t he?
It’s easy to feel ashamed and have a low opinion of yourself, and the danger of feeling you’re a loser is that often it’s deeper than words. Many of us feel deeply about issues, and it moves from just words to self-worth. And I suspect there are thousands of us who have a very shaky foundation of self-worth. We don’t feel good about ourselves and are desperately looking for a sense of worth and meaning to life. What we all need to hear very clearly is this message. We are each unique, made in God’s image, and therefore of infinite value and significance. I believe if more people truly believed that, there would be less stress and anxiety in our community. My sense of value comes from only one thing – that I am a child of the most High God. It has nothing to do with my achievements, my abilities or lack of, or how someone else treats me. If I can get a handle on this wonderful truth, I shouldn’t feel like a loser.
We can feel true shame or false shame
True shame is a feeling of guilt over some wrongdoing, and I know it. I need to come before God and seek His forgiveness and move on. But false shame is different. It’s a fear of being found out, or being exposed, humiliated or rejected. People who have false shame don’t say “I made a mistake”. They say “I am a mistake, and I can’t change”. They wear a mask, pretending to be someone different, to hide their feelings and avoid emotional pain. . The mask can be there for years and just becomes part of us, and we forget it’s there. We incorrectly assume the mask is our real self. And after many years, our true self gets lost. How sad is that. Don’t let that happen to you.
But if you’re a Christian, you never have to feel that way again. Try and see you have incredible value. God knew all about you before you were born. How do I know that? The Bible tells me. Ephesians 1:4 says “Long ago, even before He made the world, God chose us to be His very own, through what Christ would do for us; He decided then to make us holy in His eyes, without a single fault – we who stand before Him covered with His love” (LB). God gives you worth and value, so you don’t have to feel like a loser. Your worth is based on what God says about you – not what others say or how you feel about yourself.