Let's Talk About Self-Perception

[HKHaugan]

Let’s Talk About Self-Perception

 Strengths, weaknesses and spirit are the filters we perceive life through every day.  Strengths are the qualities we rely on to function in the world around us, how we want to be seen and accepted.  Weaknesses are the hidden factors that we know lie behind how we perceive and secretly react in mind, heart and spirit.  Our spirit is the motivator that puts our strengths and weaknesses to work. 

The way we process our perception in those three areas determines the condition of our character.  Character is the internal person we really are and known to us alone.  Others may make judgments and have opinions about us but only the self has any real glimpse of the way our heart, mind and spirit work together.  The problem here is that none of us really know ourselves like we think.  So much of our early development in the world is a spotty recollection of events we either like and embellish upon or they are lost in the natural self-protective avoidance of the unpleasant.  Therefore, memory is uncertain and a slippery slope for factual assessment.  The stress of past distress is an abscess in the process.  Guilt, remorse, regret and unresolved issues can halt the progress we long for. 

 So, just when our strengths carry us forward, weaknesses interfere.  It is at those moments our self-recognition kicks in.  The moment of choice arrives.  Our best intentions may be our worst choices.  The problem is this, our character is the shadow we cast in the world of people around us.  We need a person and a place into whom and where we can shift the load we carry alone.  Eccl.7:29 says it clearly, “God made man simple, but man complicated it.”  The problem is defined by the same Teacher in 7:20, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”  Paul says the same in Romans 7:10-11.  Sin is the merciless vulture sitting on the branches of our choices. 

We need a savior and a lord who is The Savior and Lord, Jesus.  He denied the vulture’s appetite and took our place on the Cross to save us from the vulture’s tempting leer.  Jesus knows exactly who He is, the Son of God.  Jesus’ Jordan becomes our Jordan.  So, unlike us He knows our past, every thought and intention but never condemns us.  He accepts us and He loves us through them. He gives us the Holy Spirit to meet us at the crossroads of our choices and their actions.  He moves us and grows us in His relational perfection and becomes our base of operations.  As He saves us, He also directs us. 

 The past caravan of guilt, remorse, regret and unresolved issues that bogs our heart and mind down in the valley of bitterness, is now able to leave that load behind and cross the Jordan into the Promised Land of His presence and we are forgiven.  The past is history.  Forgiveness is an ongoing process where memory becomes happiness and resolution, tears wiped away and each day a resurrection into opportunity, spiritual newness.  We can stop living in a jaded memory blaming others and start loving them like He does.  Then the truth becomes a reality, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Mt.28:20).” Amen.