Learning to Love

“Once you have learned to love, you will have learned to live.” ~Unknown

In many deep conversations with close friends, I have found that many of us struggle with knowing how to love.  The challenge isn’t so much in loving others, although I don’t think we really do that well either, but in loving ourselves.  We are our worst critics and, hence, our worst enemies.  We have the ability to quickly defeat anything we set out to do because not only do we struggle with loving ourselves, we struggle with finding any worthiness in ourselves.  In this group of people, I have found those who have struggled with loving themselves have a higher incidence of finding either chemical or sexual stimuli to overcome their shame.  While it seems odd that those who suffer from a feeling of unworthiness would turn to something that would make them feel less worthy, it is actually quite understandable when you look at it from a spiritual warfare point of view.  What is it that Satan wants us to believe?  That we are not good enough.  That we are weak.  That we are the worst thing we can imagine.  He uses our shame against us to do the very things we feel ashamed of and then uses that to convince us that is who we are to the point we listen more closely to Satan than to God.  

I have shared this idea in broader context with people and have gotten feedback that runs from, “uh huh, I know exactly what you are talking about” to “you just need to get your head on straight and do the right thing.”  Shame often brings out the harshest critic in us too.  Sometimes it’s so much easier to point out the people we feel aren’t as “good” as us so we feel less shame and better about ourselves.  Dr. Brene Brown is a recognized researcher and expert on shame, fear and vulnerability and she states that judging often comes from people who feel very insecure in what they are judging so they look for someone worse than themselves.  I’ve been there.  What about you?

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  A friend told me the Greek uses the work “masterpiece” instead of handiwork.  I’m no Greek scholar but I like the idea of masterpiece.  In Genesis, I read that I am created in God’s image (1:26-27).  If my understanding is correct, scripture suggests I was created as a masterpiece since God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-everything.  I do not think He would create something that wasn’t a masterpiece.  Yet, something is trying to make the masterpiece less than it was created to be.  Something is trying to take chips out of the masterpiece, trying to stain the masterpiece.  Something, or someone I should say, uses shame as a heavy-handed tool to destroy the masterpiece.  And that’s where learning to love ourselves comes in.

Self-love, in my usage, isn’t an arrogant, inward focused love.  It’s a love for self knowing that God made me and created and loved me enough to die for me on the cross in the form of His Son, Jesus.  If He can love me that much, why do I struggle to love myself?  Therein lies the battle.  Once I learn to block out the other voice or voices, once I quit listening to the one saying I’m not worthy I will see that God counts me worthy and because of that I can love myself and love others well.

I am a masterpiece created in the image of THE Master.  Because of that, I can learn to love myself well, love others openly and live fully in the hope and knowledge of my Lord.

Jeff Jones

Decatur, Texas