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Does God seem distant to you? Are you struggling to believe God cares? Do you like yourself?
Wait. What does liking yourself have to do with God? It has everything to do with God.
Jesus didn’t have to command us to love ourselves like He did to love others. He expects that you’ll automatically love and care for yourself.
The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
—Mark 12:31
Despite this being a simple truth, most people struggle to genuinely feel good about who they are. This is a problem because when you’re negative on what God made, how can you be positive about God? When you can’t see God as positive, you can’t believe He’s got your best interest in mind.
If you want to feel close to God, you have to feel positive about yourself. If you don’t like yourself, then the you you don’t like is probably not the real you God has in mind. Your identity is who God says you are, while your self-image is who you think you are. When you get the two mixed up, you can’t like yourself.
Not liking yourself is ultimately the inability to see yourself as God really sees you. Putting this all together, if you want to be closer to God, you need to see what He sees. Who does God see when He looks at you? Spend time thanking God for how He made you. Ask Him to help you see yourself through His eyes.
Matt Pavlik is a licensed professional clinical counselor who wants to see each individual restored to their true identity. He has more than 20 years of experience counseling individuals and couples at his Christian counseling practice, New Reflections Counseling. Matt and Georgette have been married since 1999 and live with their four children in Centerville, Ohio.
Matt’s courses and books contain practical exercises that help God’s truth spring to life:
I have never thanked God for how he made me. Going to do so now. I thank God often, but never thought to do so for that.
Thank you for these wonderful words of enchantment