A New Way of Thinking: Finding Self-Esteem and Self-worth in a Post-Modern World (Pt. 3)

Learning to Think Differently
So how can we change our thinking to encourage a healthy self-esteem? In answering this question, many self-help enthusiasts would advocate self-affirmation as the cure to low self-esteem. The problem is self-affirmation holds closely to the ‘power of positive thinking’ theory, which rejects all forms of negativity.  This makes self-affirmation often lead to overly positive self-assessments. In practice, this looks like pretending negative qualities do not exist or simply minimizing them, some enthusiasts literally going so far as to say, “You are perfect just the way you.” But statements such as these are a lot like overcorrecting your steering wheel when your car goes off the road – it may be tempting to swerve in the other direction, but overcompensation is not your friend. While it’s meant to empower the individual and increase self-esteem, statements like the one above tend to encourage an idealized self-perception, one that does not conform to reality.

Remember that self-esteem is simply how you esteem and value yourself.  So while low self-esteem is certainly problematic, an overly high self-esteem is not healthy either - in other words, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. If we esteem ourselves too highly and do not value others as highly as ourselves, we become focused on ourselves and our high self-esteem gives way to haughtiness and selfishness. A healthy self-esteem is neither too high nor too low – it has both dignity and confidence without being centered on ourselves.

Self-perception: Finding Self-Esteem and Self-Worth in a Post Modern World (Pt. 2)

What Do You See?
So what exactly is self-esteem? What does a healthy self-esteem look like? Is it even an attainable goal? Self esteem is simply how you value and esteem yourself – what you judge yourself to be worth. When it comes to defining healthy self-esteem, we could easily come up with many different definitions. But when I hear people talk about wanting to have a better self-esteem, what I hear is this: People want to feel good about themselves. Taken in this way, a low self-esteem is feeling bad about yourself - who you are at your core.

While inferiority and low self-esteem are feelings, feelings are based on thoughts and perceptions. In this regard, I agree with many self-help enthusiasts. Why are feelings based on thoughts and perceptions? Think about it. Say you've made plans to meet up with a friend for coffee, and you've been waiting a while for them to show. As the time drags on and you wait alone, you might start to feel angry and resentful, wandering if you’ve been stood up. But the second your friend calls you and tells you that they’ve been in an accident, your feelings would change instantly from anger and resentment to relief and concern. Why? Because your perception of the situation changed.

Therefore, how we think about ourselves affects how we feel about ourselves. The way you evaluate yourself affects how you feel and behave. But self-evaluation can go to either extreme. An overly positive (inflated) evaluation of ourselves breeds pride and haughtiness, affecting how we act toward others. An overly negative (deflated) evaluation of ourselves breeds self-condemnation and self-hatred. In other words, low self-esteem is you judging yourself to be inferior based on the criteria you use to critique yourself, i.e. if I were prettier, if I were more extroverted, if I were more successful, if I were more ____ then I’d be _____. We make negative evaluations of ourselves resulting in feelings of low self-esteem and inferiority. But our evaluations of ourselves are not simply based on our own thoughts and opinions; our negative evaluations can also be the result of believing what others think about us (spoken or implied) and accepting those evaluations and judgments as truth.

An Apologetical Entry: The Sacrifice of Jephthah

I have decided to occasionally post apologetical (simply meaning, a study of Christian theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity) thoughts and findings in relation to understanding God and the Bible. This not only stems from my personal enjoyment of apologetics, but because of my own personal struggles. I have often struggled with many Old Testament passages of Scripture - things that have made God seem very harsh, cruel, and far from the loving God often preached to me. There was even a point in my life where I honestly didn't want much to do with God because of what I read in the Bible. For this reason, apologetics has been a powerful tool in my life. I learned to never give up searching for answers. And even though the answers were often not immediate, I have found that if I wait patiently, God often meets me where I am in my doubts and struggles.

I have many unanswered questions still, but I also have more questions answered today than five years ago. As I have said before, however, it's rarely been immediate. The process has been long, but persistence is a virtue. You must never give up, even when things don't make sense. You must continually seek, ask, and knock until the door is opened (Matt 7:7). Persistence comes from determination. When you want something bad enough - you find a way to get it, no matter what.

The passage I have struggled with the most recently comes from Judges. And rather than writing out the whole story, I think I will simply paste the passage of Scripture below and then follow it up with a summary. Quite honestly though, the story spans several passages of Scripture and while it's best to start from the beginning, it's too much for me to paste. So I will focus on a central part of the story in question:

Judges 11: 29-39
29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”

36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

This is a hard passage to digest. Jephthah, an unlikely hero, sets out to defend Israel against the Ammonites. And because of Jephthah's personal background, it's safe to say he has a lot hanging on the line, defeat is simply not an option. So in a moment of rashness, Jephthah utters a vow to the Lord - something that is not only highly serious, but impossible to go back on. In an effort to make a quick bargain for what he wants, Jephthah does not stop to consider the possible consequences of his actions. In the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes:

Be very careful when you go to worship God. It is better to listen to God than to give sacrifices like fools. Fools often do bad things, and they don’t even know it. Be careful when you make promises to God. Be careful about what you say to him. Don’t let your feelings cause you to speak too soon. God is in heaven, and you are on the earth. So you need to say only a few things to him. This saying is true: “Bad dreams come from too many worries, and too many words come from the mouth of a fool.” If you make a promise to God, keep your promise. Don’t be slow to do what you promised. God is not happy with fools. Give God what you promised to give him. It is better to promise nothing than to promise something and not be able to do it. So don’t let your words cause you to sin. Don’t say to the priest, “I didn’t mean what I said.”

Ecc 5:1-6

Jephthah's rash vow ended up costing him dearly. Many who read this story, believers and non-believers alike, are horrified at the idea of Jephthah sacrificing his daughter to God. It's an unspeakable cruel act for anyone to commit, let alone a parent. It's particularly perplexing because why would God want Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter just to fulfill a vow? Why would God ever sanction a human sacrifice? More importantly, why would a loving God ever saction a human sacrifice in any situation?