Self Esteem

I don't want to get into an argument over definitions. There's a fine line between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is mostly just feeling for someone. Empathy emphasizes understanding their situation.

I re-read your posts above, and you were suggesting there that empathy is only really possible when one has personally experienced the situation, and that only those who are truy empathic can be compassionate. I don't think you really believe that, so I don't want to make it a major point of confrontation.

 

I absolutely agree with everything in this statement. Yet in making this statement you are completely redefining what you said in the statment below.

You are implying that one who does not share the experience is incapable of love. That is dead wrong.

 

Obviously a person with common experience and understanding of Scripture is the ideal counselor. No one has ever suggested otherwise.

You have been elevating experience as an argument against those who have been advocating a biblical approach to dealing with self-esteem. I have no quarrel with the value of experience, but if I have to choose I'll take a counselor with a firm grasp of biblical teaching over a counselor with vast experience any day of the week.

Empathy is a valuable tool, but only when it's accompanied by a biblical solution to the root problem.

 

I agree with Siegfried and Pastor Larry on this...experience is not key to helping those see their need for a saviour or understanding our condition as a fallen sinner...but God's word is everything we need. I seek out biblical wisdom for all my answers to situations and seek to know how God says to handle things. I put aside my own *feelings* and trust God's word...I do not look back at past hurts(we all have them),but look forward to God's Balm of Gilead that heals every wound.(past present and future)I examine every thought up to what scripture says...when I begin thinking too highly of myself,it is then the word of God shows me my error.

Like I have said before,we already think of ourselves...self protection,nourishment,etc,this is a given...but self esteem says*we are worth it* and the reality of it all is *no we are not*.

In conclusion,I do not see anything in scripture that teaches we are worthy of anything..God's grace reaches us and saves us based on what and who God is...His character,His love,His grace. Usually our experiences just get in the way of that.

[ January 29, 2003, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: Molly ]

 

double post

[ January 29, 2003, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: Abiyah ]

 

It seems that this statement lends further evidence to the fact that the root problem of low self esteem is an inaccurate view of God. Until that problem is corrected, any reformation of their view of self is merely window dressing.</font>[/QUOTE]
Well, time to try out this new keyboard! 8o)

Certainly, a correct view of our God is important,
but that correct view must begin in the parent. The
child's first understanding of our God comes from
their understanding of their parents, and if the
parents do not, themselves, have a correct
understanding, a correct understanding will not be
conveyed to the child. That is a given.

Sorry! I hit the wrong key. I was writing . . .

Yes, I am saying that a person must have a
foundation of love for themselves upon which to
build a love for others. In hospitals and orphanages,
especially those in Nazi Germany, many
experiments were tried upon infants and children,
some of which included the neglect of giving loving
care to those children. It was learned that when
loving care was neglected, the children grew up
basically functional but void of the feelings we
often take for granted, thinking they are natural.

Such feelings are not natural but are taught by
the caregivers. As the children were touched in a
kindly, caring manner, talked to, smiled at,
played with, and encouraged, they learned
that the world was a friendly place and responded
in kind. Thee were other children who were set
aside to receve merely basic care-the above,
minus the smiling, conversation, play, and
encouragement. These were the ones who grew to
woodenly go through routine life without emotion.

There were other children in those experiments
who were merely fed, changed, bathed, and
clothed--no more. These lay in their cribs without
stimuli. These literally wasted away. I do not
remember percntages, but most died.

Love is not natural; love is taught. Imagine a child
who has never seen a smile and multiply that
child's deprivation and resulting unemotional face
many times over, and you may understand what
the child is missing, but merely to a point.

Without being taught love, the child wil not learn
love. Certainly it follows that without being taught
about our God's love, that person will also never
have an understanding of His love.

[ January 29, 2003, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Abiyah ]

 

Helen beautifuly answered these questions, so I
am not sure tere is anything to add. I will merely
write this:

Empathy is the embryo of love. Without empathy,
love will not develop. Empathy recognizes
another's needs and wants to help to fulfill those
needs, whether to take care of them completely or
to encourage te loved one to fulfill them. Through
empathy, love becomes action rather than mere
selfish feeling.

Exactly, with regard to the biblical command, but
one cannot tell a drowning person to just grab
themselves by the shoe strings and pull themselves
out; neither can the person reach out to others until
they, themselves, have known love, been taught
love, and learned to give love.

I know you are not intending to be harsh, but I do
contend that your understanding of the problem
is to limited. 8o) As one song puts it, "Be ye glad,
Ooh-oh, Be ye glad!" For every person who does
not understand these things, we who do REJOICE!

But this is not 'pop psychology"! Labeling it as
such does not disfranchise it from the realm of
truth.

The above is absolutely true For A Healthy Person.
I have only learned this as a healthy peson,
however, not as an emotionally beaten-down
person. There is a huge difference between the
emotionally-healthy person's thought processes
and the emotionally-unhealthy person's thought
processes.

 

Scripture never teaches this that I know of. Scripture teaches that love comes from knowing God.

I agree with this. No one here is telling anyone to grab themselves by the shoe strings. But every believer has experience love in Christ. That is all we need. Love others as God loved us is the command of 1 John.

But you believe that. Not knowing me, you don't konw that to be true. And knowing me, I actually contend far to the contrary. I think I do understand the problem and I am convinced that the biblical solution is the proper one.

The self-esteem movement is pop psychology and that is what I am talking about. We need to recover a biblical, God-centered worldview.

According to Scripture it is true for everyone. The "healthy/emotionally beaten down" distinction is not one that is found in Scripture. It is one that has been imported from outside of Scripture. Scripture treats all men equally and calls them all to the same thing. That is where we need to be. The biblical commands do not change because of one's circumstances. God has said that he will not place on you any more than you can handle. Therefore the "emotionally beaten down" can become an excuse for something that God has promised victory over.

The thought processes of "emotionally healthy" and "emotionally unhealthy" are both treated the same way: Think right thoughts about God.

Again, I urge a biblical response to this. Let's get to what Scripture says and leave the rest of it out.

 

I disagree. Following your reasoning, it would be impossible for a Christian child with crummy parents to have a right view of God. I've known kids in those circumstances who do have a right view of God, so I know that statement is inaccurate.

I'll acknowledge that parents have a profound effect on their children. Nevertheless, to take the position you advocate is to value the power of circumstances above the power of God.

And I'm saying that without a foundation of a right view of God and love for him, one's love for self will be a hideous monstrosity.

Any solution to an unbiblical view of self MUST begin with a biblical view of God and the change only He can produce in the life of a believer.

 

It would be interesting to see who is saying what in ten or twenty years among those who are disagreeing with Abiyah and me. Age has its advantages.

One is patience...

 

So you are saying that time changes the biblical commands on how to address problems?? I can't see that as being a valid argument here. I think that time sometimes is an excuse to ignore biblical teaching. We have certainly seen that in a vareity of areas. Consider you own area of creationism. The "wisdom" of time has has led to concordant views of origins, with men like Ross and Van Til and others arguing that OEC is really a viable thing. The "wisdom" of time has led to great changes in church philosophy and ministry styles that have not been good for the church. I just can't see that the "wisdom" of time is a great advancement on biblical teaching. To me, life problems should be addressed in teh 21st century in the same way that they were addressed in the 1st century. The Bible is sufficient to equip us for every good work. Are we really depending on teh bare biblical truth here or are we trying to accessorize with the "respectability" of modern pop psychology?

I am still interested in seeing your response to the challenge I mentioned earlier, about a place where the Bible says that the answer to life's problems is to feel better about yourself. I am serious with that; I am not trying to mock your position in anyway. I can't think of a place but perhaps you can. The reason I ask for a biblical example of this is because it is thrown out by so many "biblical" counselors as the solution. I am interested in the biblical basis for such solution.

Again, I restate my point that my concern is that we be biblical in our approach to problems and I am overwhelmingly concerned that there is a distinct lack of biblical basis for what is being said here.

 

Helen,

So the only argument you can muster is, "When you're my age you'll see it my way"?

I'll take that as a concession that your view is wholly lacking in biblical support.

For what it's worth, neither Larry nor I have ever argued that experience is without value. I've said before and say again (since you've given no scriptural case to interact with) that biblical truth is absolutely necessary to a proper view of God and self. Experience is exclusively complementary.

 

Pastor Larry, the Bible is the answer -- or, more specifically, Christ is. No one is disputing that at all.

Nor, at least to my mind, is self-esteem 'feeling good about oneself.' I very often don't feel good about myself, but I know also that not only am I not an accident in God's economy, but that what has happened to me in terms of pain and experience is no accident either. Their purpose is not soley for my own spiritual growth, but for my ability to empathise with others and so be able to care for them (love them) with more understanding and effectiveness.

What time will change is us, not the Bible. It will change our understanding of some of what the Bible says. Please keep in mind the famous 1 Cor.13 -- without love, nothing we do or say or are matters a whit -- in fact it probably drives people off. That passage also reminds us that now we see through a glass darkly.

Experience has its place. It does not replace Bible, and when it seems to contradict Bible then it is our interpretation of the experience which is wrong. That being said, it is also experience (primarily with pain and suffering) and the healing we have experienced through Christ which makes us able to encourage and support and love others who are walking behind us on these varous paths. Please remember that Philip was told simply to walk alongside the Ethiopian, not to open up a preaching session. It was not until the Ethiopian had indicated that he wanted to know more that Philip began to speak. Had Philip not obeyed the Holy Spirit and walked alongside first, that opportunity would have been messed up royally.

And so we must also walk alongside. And when I was hurting, the people who helped me the most were those who had been hurt in similar ways and recovered. "Trust God" meant a lot more coming from them than from those who had no idea of the problem being endured.

In the meantime, back to self-esteem, I don't know how much more clearly I could say it than I have. If you are empty, you have nothing to give. There are times in our lives -- probably all of us -- when we have been drained completely and life seems to have fallen down around us. Like the man on the stretcher, we are not even capable of walking to Jesus for healing in prayer. We are stunned, in shock, in total pain, wondering why prayers did not seem to be answered before, even, perhaps, wondering if one is not just some kind of cosmic joke.

The best stretcher carriers are those who know that stretcher needs to be carried as well as knowing that Jesus is the only answer. They are the people who have been there done that, and someone carried them to the Lord in prayer and in friendship walked alongside for a bit to make sure the hurting person was walking OK again. It takes some degree of confidence in both Jesus and self to be a stretcher-carrier. It sometimes takes the kind of understanding compassion that can only come from experience.

Which is one of the reasons we are to praise God in all things -- because He is allowing a certain painful experience in part so we can reach out to others with more understanding later.

And when we are healed, and walking again, we become more sure of ourselves in our walk of faith. We have the experience behind us which allows us to trust more fully and deeply, and thus to be more sure of ourselves as a result. This kind of 'self-esteem' is absolutely necessary for a mature Christian. We can't all be wobbly in the faith!

It is not paying attention to oneself which is wrong, it is focusing attention on oneself which is wrong. You said I was off topic talking about taking care of myself. Personally, I felt it was entirely on topic. I have to take care of myself. If I don't, I can't take care of others.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is the implicit statement that you already are loving yourself. Now, I think we will both agree fully that this does not mean you somehow have to learn to love yourself first! That is bizarre. It is a real twisting of Scripture. Even people who commit suicide often love themselves so much they do not want to put themselves through the consequences of their actions or they want to inflict pain on others for what has happened to them.

Rather Jesus is stating, and rather clearly, too, I think, "You folks already love yourselves. Now, love your neighbor in the same way."

If love means caring and commitment, and I believe it does (as distinct from any feelings regarding that care and commitment), then we each do indeed love ourselves in that we truly are committed to our own care and well-being to some degree or another. The minimum line on this is precisely what you stated was off-topic: I eat, I sleep (hopefully enough), I get dressed, I try to stay healthy, etc. In this I care for, or love, myself. Now, if I can help those God has put into my life to also eat enough, sleep enough, dress neatly and completely, stay healthy -- this is also minimal.

And inasmuch as I know I need God's Word for my spiritual health and nourishment, I will also do my best to provide the same for my neighbor.

In the long run, to close with what I said in an earlier post here, true self-esteem for a Christian is going to be God-esteem because of what He has done in our lives. Very frankly, I like what He is making of me. I have not done it. I have not always cooperated fully. But I can look back at what I was and be quite impressed that given my ornery nature, He has nevertheless brought me this far and is still on the job!

 

Self esteme is not thinking more highly of yourslef then you should, it is not thinking you are better then anyone else. What it is is not thinking you are dirt to be walked on. That you deserve to be treated badly. Self esteme means being confident that God loves you just like you are, you don't have to try to earn love and acceptance. Not from God, or anyone. People accept you like you are, or they don't, and it's ok when they don't. Self esyeme means you don't have to be hurt everytime someone doesn't like you, or says or does something that does hurt you don't have to belittle yourself becasue of it. It's ok. Self esteme is freely accepting what others may say about you or think of you, becasue you are safe and secure in God and His love.

 

Sorry I realize now I misspelled some words.

 

The self-esteem movement tells people that the answer to drugs and teenage immorality is feel better about yourself.

I think you misunderstand the "self esteem movement". Self esteem is not about feeling better about yourself, it's about recognizing that you have value.

Even if it's "just" about feeling "better about yourself", the biblical examples cited on this thread clearly show that one of the side effects of faith in Christ is having a better feeling of oneself.

There's an old saying: The me I see is the me I'll be. I think it's important that we see oursleves as God sees us. Last time I checked, God wasn't in the doormat making business.

[ January 30, 2003, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Johnv ]

 

Maybe you haven't seen much on this topic. Self esteem, recognizing that you have value, is about the way you feel about yourself, which is jsut what I said it was. I have never seen it described any other way.

I have seen no biblical examples of where one is told to "have self esteem" or "recognize your value" as a way to solve a problem. Do you have one?? I asked for one. I asked for people to give biblical evidence that self-esteem is the answer to problems. So far no one, you included, have given any biblical examples.

Your "old saying" has no biblical value that I am aware of. God sees us as dirty rotten sinners who have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. That's a great place to be. If that is what you mean, I'll buy in. God is not making doormats, you are right. But that is not the issue.

 

The whole point of the law is to show us that we are losers on our own and can do nothing good. God Himself wants us to see our hopeless state so that we will then see the need for a Savior!
It is good for me to see that I can do nothing on my own,it is after all what brought me to salvation and now keeps me depending on Christ alone.
Self-esteem is not good because it seeks to tell me,"well, I am not so bad,I am good,infact I am great!" This teaching is then going against the right veiw that a believer should have.
If you were to meet me in person you would not see someone who holds their head down and is sad and depressed, to the contary,I can hold my head high, and truly enjoy life because I Know that my Redeemer lives! And that alone is my focus in life not me trying to tell myself that I am great.