How can I feel good about myself?

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - SELF-ESTEEM

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

How can I feel good about myself? The Christian basis for proper self-esteem.

Part 1—Clearing the ground

In one of his Grapevine newsletters, Editor John Cooney quotes Stephen Glen, an advisor on child development to several US presidents. "The thing I celebrate every morning," writes Glen, "is the incredible capacity God has given us to rise above our past...rise above our parents...rise above our teachers...rise above our environment...and create whole new worlds of opportunity and possibility in every moment of our lives.

"But to avail ourselves of this," he says, "we must come to believe three things. Otherwise, that potential remains only potential:

"First, I must discover that I'm a capable person who can think and learn and change. I don't always have to follow what others do—but I can, through the grace of God, set a new course for myself once I believe that's possible.

"Second, I must believe that my existence counts for something...that I matter...that the life within me has some significance in the scheme of things—greater than just the daily task of surviving. The human being was created with an unquenchable quest to find significance and meaning, a purpose somewhere in life. The human being is the only creature on this planet for whom the need to be needed, the need to have a purpose in life, is greater than our will to survive. We're the only creature we know of who will become anorexic, suicidal, literally give up he will to live, if we believe our lives don't matter anywhere to anyone.

"Third, I must believe that, although I can't always determine what happens to me in life, I can always determine how I let that affect me. And there is, in the end, much I can do through my actions, choices, prayers, commitments and faith to ultimately influence the events of my life—I am not a passive victim of fate, luck or circumstance."

I am sure that all my readers would agree with those statements. Wouldn't it be great if we all had this sort of self-esteem? And yet, sadly, it seems as if a large proportion of today's society struggles with the problem of a low self-image. Glen himself says, "The challenge we face is how to re-establish these beliefs in a generation of kids who doubt them more than any other generation in history." Dr. John Sturt, a well-known New Zealand doctor and counsellor, says that probably 80% of Kiwis have a problem in this area. A woman operator at a secular youth centre in New Plymouth tells how they have had to take down all the mirrors. She says, "People complain that kids these days won't look at them in the eye. Kids who come here can't even look at themselves in the eye."

Norman Vincent Peale, in Power of the Plus Factor, tells how he came across a tattoo studio in Kowloon in Hong Kong. In the window, among samples of words or images one could have tattooed on one's body, were the words Born to lose. Peal says:

I entered the shop in astonishment and, pointing to those words, asked the Chinese tattoo artist, "Does anyone really have that terrible phrase, Born to lose, tattooed on his body?"

He replied, "Yes, sometimes."

"But," I said, "I just can't believe that anyone in his right mind would do that."

The Chinese man simply tapped his forehead and said in broken English, "Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind."

One French philosophy student expressed it like this:

God is dead,
Marx is dead,
And I don't feel too good myself either.