Heartbreaking mommy moment #?:  “Mommy, I’m a dork.”

So we have a talk about words.

We talk about who we most truly are.  How we can believe what God says instead of what our feelings say.

In the course of any given week, it is possible for me to hear many self-demeaning statements and other-demeaning statements.   At each little league baseball game this summer I heard a mom yell demeaning things at her son.  I read of others being demeaned or demeaning themselves on Facebook almost daily.  I find it impossible to find a show on television anymore that does not utilize sarcasm and demeaning jokes as a base for it’s comedy.  Many times the harshness is shrouded in sarcasm.

Self-demeaning words can invade my own thinking at times and even find their way out my own mouth.  When this happens, the words are usually centered on the theme of being a failure.

I was reminded this week of how all of these things influence not only me but also my children.  The need for me as a parent to continually teach my children (and  myself) to preach the gospel to ourselves is great because the world isn’t going to do it.

Our culture is an interesting one.

It is one that wants so badly to push for tolerance for all and confidence in kids and demands just treatment of others and ourselves.  Yet–dare I say–it seems as if it glories in this sort of harshness toward others and oneself.

There is such a push for self-confidence in the early years but the desire gets twisted only to end in striving to death for perfection.

Who isn’t tempted to at least WANT to live up to all of the beautiful and creative ideas on Pinterest.  I don’t know too many people who use Facebook or Pinterest who haven’t said, “Oh…I should do that too.” Or, “I wish I were more like that.”  Or, “I want that.” Or, “I want to BE that.”

I’m not against using these tools in life (I use them), just thinking of how they can also be another constant reminder to my negative “voice” to tell me that….I’m not doing enough, being enough…or “living” enough.

If I’m going to be in this world and partake in this frenzy of information, how then must I think?

J.I. Packer wrote in Knowing God, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.

If I know I’m a child of God and understand what that means, then there is confidence in who I am and what He’s calling me to.  The truth fills the “thought void” in which the voices of the world want to rush in.  The truth of who God is and who I am directs me toward how I spend this one precious life of being Christ’s ambassador. This withstands any voice in the world that pulls me in another direction.

I must know who my Father is.  I must know my true identity as His child.  I must recognize the family to which I belong, and have discovered my deepest roots (His people are my brothers and sisters).  Most importantly, I have an audience of One, my heavenly Father.

Do you think about yourself and the Christian life in this way?

My small group at church is reading a book by Sinclair Ferguson called Children of the Living God, Delighting in the Father’s Love.  It is a sweet book.

He says, “Our thinking about who we are as Christians should not BEGIN with what we can discover about ourselves by self-analysis.   Rather, it begins with what God says about those who trust in Christ.”

Because sometimes our self-analysis is a bit off…

Do you have a theology…a doctrine…based on scripture…that you can hang your hopes on when you need to speak gospel sanity to yourself? When you need to know who your truest self is?

The hard part is keeping it in constant clear view and saying no to the voices of the world.

“Being a Christian is not dependent on experiences so much as on our new relationship with God.”

Only in the Word (not the world) can we find out what we need to know about this new relationship.

I’m thankful today for the Word of God which tells me Who and Whose I am!