Vision and Fantasy III: Rejecting Self-Hatred

Apart from Jesus, we wallow as creatures that love darkness rather than light. But as his followers, we are delivered from selfishness and self-absorption. In Jesus, we receive power to become the children of God. (John 1:12) In fact, through him, we are NOW (present, active tense) the children of God. (I John 3:2) To remain grounded in reality, we have to hold two realities—our brokenness and our belovedness–in tension. But we tend to get out of balance. And, surprisingly, we get out of balance not by over-emphasizing our chosenness but by becoming fixated on our depravity and brokenness.

There’s all sorts of reasons why we do this, but it ultimately traces back to comfort. It’s simply more comfortable to resist than to receive the love and character of God. We are like skittish dogs, uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the firm and caring hand of a loving master. We find it safer to focus on how unworthy we are so that we can hold ourselves in contempt and keep ourselves at a distance.

Ultimately, isn’t all of our self-contempt and self-hatred simply an elaborate way of maintaining control and power over our lives? We resist being chosen and adopted because receiving that reality would mean surrendering our favorite ways of maintaining control and getting our way. And might beating ourselves up and wallowing in self-hatred simply be a clever way of pre-emptively justifying the ways we numb out and act out?

The problem is that when we over-focus on our depravity and brokenness, we are living in fantasy. Not because there’s not a dark or broken side of us. We all know there is. But, rather, because a different story has been written for us. Until we are willing to surrender our old story and step into the new identity Jesus gives us, we are living in pride. It takes humility and courage to surrender and receive the love that God has lavished on us. It takes character and strength to surrender self-hatred and self-contempt.

Brandon