Funny thing about low self-esteem is it often shows up as exactly the opposite. You know, the person who can’t stop telling you about their professional accomplishments after being laid off or the person trying to convince you that their single life is far superior to your proverbial ball-and-chain when all they want is a family. We’ve all been there. On both ends.
I’ve been told that the best way to handle feeling self-conscious or insecure is to keep in mind that everyone else is likely feeling the same way. Internet quotes frequently remind us: most people aren’t paying you any attention at all, and certainly not more attention than they’re paying themselves.
I agree with that, but it stops short.
See, low self-esteem is the enemy’s way of consuming you with YOU…so you don’t do what you’re meant to do, or be who you’re meant to be for the others in that room you’re staring at the floor in.
Our fixation with our flaws and how we’re being perceived is not only self-absorbed but I would offer, it’s also lazy. Focusing on yourself is our default as humans making it…easy.
It takes little to no effort to consider how you feel, or to assess someone else’s something against yours. It’s easier to rehearse your response in your head than it is to listen until the other person stops talking. We spend entire conversations listening and responding only to ourselves. While that may sound like a lot, it’s actually the low-hanging fruit.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a story that helps illustrate this. A master entrusts his servants with talents before leaving on a journey. Two of the servants put theirs to work immediately. The third servant buries his in the ground. When the master returns and assesses progress, he calls the third servant lazy.
My guess is that the third servant didn’t bury his talent because he didn’t want to work. He buried his talent because he was afraid, fearful, self-conscious about losing it somehow. Like us.
We don’t focus inward because we’re so confident. It’s quite the opposite. We’re focusing inward because of low self-esteem and preoccupation with everything that’s wrong with us. In other words: fearful, self-conscious, lazy.
The other servants felt confident in what that seed could yield; confident in the promise that they held in their hand. So confident they immediately started looking out at the horizon, imagining what that seed could become, imagining who might be provided for with it, imagining how it may transform their family or their community. Immediately, their confidence becomes a platform on which to stand and look outward. That’s the work.
The familiar dance of doubting your abilities, doubting your worth, struggling to trust your own decisions - that’s easy. It’s as easy as it probably was for that servant to bend down and bury a talent in the same dirt he was standing on when it was handed to him.
Being consumed with YOU (even if it’s with your own inadequacy) is exactly where the enemy wants you. We get so focused on all we believe we aren’t that we manipulate our words, bodies, and personas into a form that no longer resonates with the people meant for us.
Imagine how much you might get done in a room full of people if you weren’t singularly focused on you. Imagine the spaciousness that would give you to be about your Heavenly Father’s business. Imagine if you could first embrace the vessel God hand-sculpted, then adorn it beautifully, and focus on the message it is meant to carry.
And when I say adorn it, I mean that literally.
Please, do the ‘fits and the hair and the nails. Be the grandest version of you possible. Because that’s how we’ll know it’s you. You have to be you… so you’re recognizable to the ones who see themselves in you.
Let me remind you that you are the vessel. You are the packaging that holds the product. The product is a one-of-a-kind testimony that points others toward Christ. Instead of obsessing over your package, obsess over your product.
Look up from the floor, look up from the buried talent, and look out. Focus on who in the room might need encouragement. Who might need something you’ve learned recently. Turn outward and see how much you’re able to change, what value you can leave behind.
Once you can treat yourself with kindness and compassion, and learn that you are valuable regardless of success or failure, you go into rooms looking for whom you can uplift, instead of looking for who appears to be above you.
The room will quickly forget the 15 pounds you’ve gained this year, the new growth you haven’t had time to address, the nails that need a fill, and the outfit you’ve worn countless times. But they will remember you being more generous than you had to be. They will remember how encouraging your words were. They will remember the way you listened with intent and fascination. And they’ll remember that you offered more to the room than you took away from it.
I wonder…
- Where in your life are you focused on yourself right now (even if it shows up as self-criticism) and what might you be avoiding by staying there?
- What gift or opportunity have you buried out of fear instead of putting it to work? What story have you told yourself to justify burying it?
- When you think about the last room you left, what do you think people actually remember about you? What would you want them to remember instead?
I love you.
Coi Marie
Affirmation
I am not my flaws, my failures, or the fit of my clothes. I am a vessel designed to reflect His goodness.
If you know someone who may appreciate this perspective, please share this link with them. See you on Sunday.
