I’ve spent more time with myself in the past year than I wanted to. Some days I’ve found my companion a disappointment. After a COVID week with no shower and in the same pajamas, I didn’t even want to look at me. I might’ve smelled bad, but I couldn’t smell. Making peace with yourself isn’t the first thing on your mind when you’re struggling.
How about you? What has it been like for you to be with yourself? In the extra time and quiet imposed by the Pandemic, most of us looked at ourselves on Zoom. More importantly, we’ve had time to look within. We faced temptation to avoid self-examination by focusing on the all too convenient complexities of everyone else. After all, with constant opinions, comments, and reports streamed on social media, it’s easy to focus on “them.” We might direct our assessment to people in our circle who share our circumstances or even our homes. We might turn on our own selves without much grace and come to self-loathing. Without finding personal peace, we stink like a sick week without a shower (I speak from sick week experience here). Rather than making conclusions about others, we need help making peace with ourselves.
No one tells you like the truth like your own self. If we’re to find peace with ourselves, we have to tell ourselves the truth and listen. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is working on this same project with us.
Hopeful truth for us means nothing without mucking our way through the hard truth about us. God accepts that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). That’s the first truth. To make peace for that ugly truth, “he first loved us,” (1 John 4:19).
To make peace with ourselves, we have to move out of the first truth and into the second. We can’t stay in a place of self-condemnation or condemnation of others and expect to experience peace. I thought a lot about this and came up with at least 3 reasons why it can be hard to make peace with ourselves.
3 Obstacles to Making Peace with Yourself
There’s a battle for our MIND –
Satan works the ultimate remote job, speaking accusations about our earthly lives day and night to God Himself in heaven (Revelation 12:10). He takes “Zoom conference” to a whole new level. Our enemy actively “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour,” (1 Peter 5:8) waging a war for our thoughts. He devours us with schemes constructed to entrap us, (Ephesians 6:11) using our weaknesses against us.
Hard experiences like oppressive news of violence, political unrest, and physical illness or fear of it (or the vaccines for it) amplify our weaknesses and make us especially vulnerable to temptation. If we give in to these pressures and let down the guard of truth in our minds, we become, “double-minded and unstable.” Our thoughts shift like wildly moving sea waves. (James 1:2-8) A lack of peace with God, with ourselves, and those around us results.
If you suspect someone has been working to mix you up and tear you down during these months of quiet and quarantine, some has. Refuse to let our enemy snatch away your peace. He may use circumstances or people. Let’s tell ourselves the truth: the Accuser works night and day to draw us out of peace and into conflict.
If we want to make peace with ourselves, we’re going to have to fight for it by taking every thought in our mind captive. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
There’s an attack on our HEART –
In the stillness of the year around us, what words have been whispered to you about your worth? The script may be uniquely tuned to your place in life, but the message sounds the same. “You aren’t loved.”
Peace-stealing messages may sound like:
- I’m isolated because no one cares about me.
- My life isn’t as important as others.
- No one misses me or thinks of me.
- Even when this is over, I’ll be alone.
- I don’t have much to offer the outside world, so stay inside.
- My life must be empty because my life is empty.
- I didn’t have a full life before all this so what is there to look forward to?
Do these accusations sound familiar? “If we’re so valued, why is good withheld?” The questions come from the same lying lips that once led the heart of Eve into a place of doubt. With our hearts under attack in private, only God’s truth guides us to the cross-shaped place of peace where we’re meant to abide.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). So loved, even while so flawed. So valued that God exchanged a beautiful, perfect, divine life for our ugly, unworthy, unholy life. God sees us accurately and loves us that way. We don’t scare or disgust Him. Truth is, “God treasures us.”
There’s a lie about our LIFE –
In these days, lives crumble in minutes. A careless Tik Tok, an impulsive Tweet, an honest comment, or half of a sentence lead to a viral pile on of accusations. We now recognize “cancel culture” and know any of us could fall victim to it. In this new culture of condemnation, inflated by ease of communication, we hear the message that our life is unprotected from the unpredictable players in the world.
People feel a lot of anxiety navigating this unsafe world. But believing we’re without protection is a lie about our life.
In truth, “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me,” (Psalm 23:4). In these dark valley days, God has not canceled us or condemned us. He is close, comforting, and protecting. He has a plan in place for “goodness and mercy” to stay with us all our days until we come to our final home prepared with His own design. The plans for our life are full of purpose, God’s purpose.
While we may walk out our days in troubled times, our purpose-filled life’s path is protected. In increased darkness, God’s peace shines more brightly. We need to keep God’s truth streaming through our minds and hearts to make and maintain our personal peace in an unsafe world.
Do you want to come out of this experience having made peace with yourself? Let’s overcome the obstacles of the battle for our minds, the attack on our hearts, and the lies about our lives. Yes, we’re flawed, but we are loved and protected. Because of this unchanging truth, we can make peace with ourselves.
5 Steps to Start
- Go back and click on each linked scripture verse to read them.
- Choose one verse that impacts you most and memorize it.
- Use that verse and make it a personal prayer with your name in it.
- Read the 23rd Psalm every day and ask God to use it to correct your thinking.
- Read more about Your Identity in Christ here.
