How Do You Measure Yourself?

Today I've been thinking about all the lies I believed about who I was. When I was a child of school age, I believed I was the fat, unattractive girl in the classroom. I believed I was inferior because my father "didn't have a real job." (He was a pastor and the kids thought he worked only one day a week.) Since I lived in a small mining town where most men went to work every day, I felt ashamed that Daddy seemed to work only one day a week. Little did I know, then, that Daddy clocked twice as many hours as miners. He was always "on call", and much of his ministering was while I slept at night.

Because my mom couldn't cope with the fact that I was "always one step ahead" of her (her words), she made me feel bad about all the trouble I caused her. Actually, I was extremely creative! I remember trying to solve our apparent poverty by going door-to-door with a cup, offering to sing for each resident, for money, of course. While that was embarrassing for my parents, it was also very creative!

I remember how I viewed myself as a beautiful teenager. I had lost weight, won some awards with my singing and my writing, and the boys were coming out of the woodwork. I thought I was pretty cool!

Then, as a wife of a rage-aholic, I viewed myself as totally worthless. I reasoned if I was valuable I would not be demeaned and battered by someone who claimed to love me.

I could go on, but you get the idea: my perception of myself was totally dependent upon what other people thought, and on how they treated me. It was always a false image!

Eventually, I learned how to measure myself against what God said about me. After all, He created me! He knew me better than I could ever know myself! I began to read scripture out loud. Psalm 139 was my favorite:

1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
3 You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.

13 For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

There are many more wonderful scriptures that tell me how precious I am to my Creator, and the more I read, the more I believed. Scripture tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by The Word of God. I know that to be true, first, because God's Word says so. But I also know it from experiencing it.

All of us have had life experiences that were destructive to our self-perception. Reading God's view of you can help you replace those untrue perceptions about yourself. And read it out loud! Start with John 3:16 and substitute your name for all the pronouns. For God so loved April that He gave His only begotten Son. The more you read, the more you will believe.

Whatever else you do, measure yourself against what GOD says about you! No one else's opinion is as important as your Creator's opinion!

Have a Blessed New Year!
(c)2008 April Lorier Perspective