The Grand Goal: You Feeling Unworthy
Feeling unworthy is a common feeling, but not a fun one! It’s your Fear Monster’s goal is to repeatedly tell you that you aren’t worthy.
Here’s your Fear Monster’s strategy:
- Convince you that you must EARN your worthiness. That keeps you focused on striving to prove your worthiness by taking on too much, seeking perfection, people pleasing, and/or performing. The earning keeps you preoccupied and without time to question your frantic actions. And you have no space to connect to who you REALLY are, or to engage with others in meaningful ways reinforcing the feeling that you are unworthy.
- Keep you seesawing between feeling unworthy and feeling shame.
- Enthusiastically encourage you to be critical, harsh, and lack compassion towards yourself which only further strengthens the idea that you are unworthy.
- Keep you stuck in that miserable unworthy place!
Unfortunately, too often we are more than willing to cooperate with our Fear Monster’s grand goal! In fact, we’ve been helping our Fear Monster for so long that we naturally see evidence all around us that confirms our unworthiness.
And why is that? Because we find it difficult to believe that we are valuable and worthy simply by virtue of WHO created us. We can’t fathom that we are truly masterpieces in light of all of our many imperfections.
Kintsugi
The Japanese practice a fascinating art form called Kintsugi which means “to join with gold.” Treasured pieces of pottery are intentionally broken and then reassembled using a mixture of lacquer and powdered gold to create beautiful works of art.
The process is time consuming and often takes up to three months to complete. First, tree sap is used as glue to bond the broken pieces back together. After it has dried for several weeks, the cracks are carefully covered with the gold and lacquer mixture to create unique beautiful works of art.
Kintsugi is more than just art. It’s a Japanese tradition that goes back more than five hundred years and embodies so much more including…
- Celebrating imperfections rather than hiding them
- Recognizing how fragile humans are and seeing the beauty in that
- Encouraging a calm optimism in the midst of things falling apart
Isn’t that an amazing perspective? What if you were to see yourself in a “Kintsugi sort of way?”
- Celebrating your imperfections
- Appreciating your humanness and seeing the beauty in that
- Approaching life optimistically and calmly even when things feel like they falling apart or you feel broken
How does that perspective change how you see you?
Back to the Beginning
Because of Adam’s sin, we too are broken, yet with God’s masterful skill He is able to transform us from our brokenness into beautiful beings that reflect Him – worthy beings. When we choose to believe God loves us deeply, we are able to view ourselves the way that God views us: as His precious masterpieces! And God is most worthy of all!
The problem is, we doubt that truth and fall prey to the whispers of the enemy (trust me your Fear Monster is not your friend!) and your Fear Monster is a very persistent whisperer. He knows the messages that send you and me sprinting back down the path of unworthiness!
He tricks us into thinking we have to do something, and typically a lot of that something, to earn our worthiness. And in his deceitful and conniving way, each time we edge close to the carrot of worthiness, the carrot moves just a little further away. Undaunted, we hustle some more (we are oh so good at hustling!), which only leads to feeling more unworthy.
What You Need to Know
You are not what you do.
Your worth does not hinge on how perfect you are, or what you are able to accomplish.
Your stuff doesn’t make you valuable, the way you look, or anything else.
You simply ARE valuable.
You are valuable because God, the maker of the universe, uniquely created YOU! He sees you as beautiful and beloved just the way you are! No need to earn His love or strive to be worthy. He’s done it ALL on the cross!
He longs for you to receive His love for you and to own it for yourself. And when you do, the walls you’ve been hiding behind tumble down and you are free to stand brave and tall in your unconditional worthiness.
By choosing to focus on who God says you are and ignore the chatter of your Fear Monster, you are able to confront your fears. It takes practice – it won’t happen overnight, but each day you walk in who God created you to be it gets a little easier and you reflect Him a little brighter!
Worthy Perks
The more worthy you begin to feel, the more you see how worthy and valuable everyone around you is. They no longer are your competition, because there’s no one else in your category. I am a one-of-a-kind creature and you are too! It’s like comparing apples and artichokes!
Feeling worthy allows you to slow down, breathe, and enjoy life because you no longer have to earn anything. You just need to believe!
No more compensating in funky ways trying to become worthy.
You see all of life’s many possibilities and there is a zest for life that wasn’t there before.
Getting to That Worthy Place
In God’s eyes, you are incredibly valuable! Check out just a few scriptures – the emphasis is mine:
God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:8-10 (NLT)
So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Luke 12:7b (NLT)
But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (before we chose to love or follow Him!) Romans 5:8 (NLT)
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:13-14 (ESV)
Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us, and we are his. We are His people, the sheep of his pasture. …For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and His faithfulness continues to each generation. Psalm 100:3 & 5 (NLT)
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. I John 4:9-11 (NLT)
Final Thoughts
Shame is the belief that you are unworthy – not enough; that you don’t matter.
Empathy is the antidote to shame and unworthiness. Will you choose to have compassion on yourself the way God has compassion on you?
When you extend compassion to yourself and treat yourself with kindness in spite of your perceived flaws you are then more able to do the same for others. As you operate more and more from that loved place, you naturally reflect God while fear, unworthiness, and shame all fade.
Whatever you focus on grows – looms large. You WILL find evidence to prove what you believe to be true, even if it is a lie.
When you look at the Kintsugi bowl above, do you choose to focus on the flaws, or do you see the unique beauty in the imperfections that make it a precious work of art?
What will you choose to focus on – the whispers of your Fear Monster, or the soft, loving voice of your Father?
