Fighting with the Mirror

I love the stroke to my ego when I do something right. I think a lot of it has to do with my environment growing up, the interaction I had with my father as a child, and the fact that I was so used to failing (or at least feeling like I did) in many areas of my life as a teenager. This is one of my tougher battles, I don’t think I am arrogant, but I do place too much importance on what people think and basing that on whether I feel I was successful or not. 

This has been very eye opening and painful revelation to me. I have had to see something in myself that I didn’t like and find an unacceptable trait in me. It is crazy, I want to hear from others how I did on just about everything from singing, to cooking, to teaching, writing, running, really…as I look, it plagues everything I do. If I apply this to my Spiritual walk, there is a lot that can go haywire with that. 

If I base my spiritual walk with Christ on what others believe I should be doing, I am trusting others to know more about God’s plan for me than He does.

I am not listening to Him, I listen to “them.” My fear of failure or of not being right is so constricting that it can choke out and deafen me to what God wants me to do. I like to justify myself by saying things like, “It isn’t that I don’t trust God, it is that I don’t trust myself. Maybe I am making all of this up and He hasn’t been telling me anything at all.” Is that possible, sure, but what if He is and I am not moving because I let my “self” talk me out of it for fear of failing? 

Those who know me well know that this is my constant battle. I have a renewed desire to resolve this recently though and I am determined to push through this built in hindrance. That comes only from a reliance on Him to do the work while I just let Him do it. Times of quiet reflection, meditating on Him, and studies await.

Funny little side note, I just caught myself wanting to wrap up by asking, “Does anyone else struggle with this?” So I could qualify and justify that I was not alone in this. So what if I was?

Pt. 2 here