SELF-ESTEEM Pretty powerful…

 Healthy self-esteem is like a child's armor against the challenges of the world. Kids who know their strengths and weaknesses and feel good about themselves seem to have an easier time handling conflicts and resisting negative pressures. They tend to smile more readily and enjoy life. These kids are realistic and generally optimistic.

      In contrast, kids with low self-esteem can find challenges to be sources of major anxiety and frustration. Those who think poorly of themselves have a hard time finding solutions to problems. If given to self-critical thoughts such as "I'm no good" or "I can't do anything right," they may become passive, withdrawn, or depressed. Faced with a new challenge, their immediate response might be "I can't."

      Self-esteem is similar to self-worth (how much a person values himself or herself). This can change from day to day or from year to year, but overall self-esteem tends to develop from infancy and keep going until we are adults.     

       So, self-esteem issues are not just a childhood problem, but rather something that follows us all through life.  The earlier we get this right the better we can be for a long a time.  Self-esteem has two extremes and both are dangerous.  On one extreme is high self-esteem.  This surfaces in cockiness, self-love, conceitedness and the like.  The other extreme is low self-esteem.  Where we hate and loath ourselves.  Somewhere in the middle of these extremes is something called healthy self-esteem.  Ah!  That’s where you want to be and that’s where God wants us to be too.  Romans 12:3b says…  Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

       Self-esteem is probably more powerful than what we think.  It is rooted in faith that understands I am of value because God loves me.  It is rooted in reality because I am a sinner and unworthy of His love.  So an active faith that has grace, forgiveness and confession of sin as a constant keeps us in the middle of two devastating extremes.  Let’s keep living right there in the middle, we are unworthy yet worth it.