Life itself is a series of problems that often act as obstacles to our search for significance… Our fulfillment in this life depends not on our skills to avoid life’s problems, but on our ability to apply God’s specific solutions to those problems.
Robert S. McGee in The Search for Significance
There is a complicated confusion for Christians in the area of self-image. I have even been chastised for “thinking of myself.” Not for thinking of myself more than others, but simply thinking of myself at all.
And that almost makes me angry. As if in thinking of myself (with anything other than contempt at my sin) I’m somehow being disloyal.
In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton pointed out that it is only when the unlovely is loved that it improves. That the disgusting inspires disgust is no surprise, but disgust leads to destroying, not enhancing. (Think snakes, spiders and rats, as opposed to specialized breeds of dogs or rabbits.)
We must accept that we have value if we are to proclaim that all human life has value.
If we are to champion the unborn, and the poor and infirm, we must also recognize there is something beautiful even in this soddy old skin we happen to be confined to.
Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom for or lives. The price is too high for us to even calculate. Our desire to be loved and accepted is a symptom of a deeper need– the need that frequently governs our behavior and is the primary source of our emotional pain. Often unrecognized, this is our need for self-worth. God knows we need to know how valuable our lives are, and he spends much of his Word telling us so.
Robert S. McGee in The Search for Significance
I think there are very few passions or needs within us (I question if there are any) that don’t originate form the core of needs and desires that God himself planted in us.
It was C.S. Lewis who wrote, God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
In his book The Search for Significance Robert McGee creates a mind-spinning connection between four big churchy words, and how they meet four deep areas of hurt in our wounded self-worth.
I’ve read many many Christian books, so new gets my attention. McGee asked a new question that totally rocked my mind and still has me reeling: If God has one perception and you another, whose is correct?
Well, we all know the Sunday School answer: God’s!
Why then do we preface such discussions of value or even forgiveness with the words, “In God’s eyes, I’m-“ as if we’re qualifying what we’re about to say. As if he’s a dear old man who doesn’t really know what’s going on, but we’ll humor/acknowledge his version out of respect for his position as, you know, GOD.
We’ve lived backwards.
I love to quote 2 Peter 1:3 – His [Jesus’s] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (emphasis mine). The following quotes are from McGee’s book, and showed me for the first time the tremendous and usable gift of words I’d heard all my life.