Low self-esteem is very common in our culture. Within most of us there are powerful negative voices telling us that we are not good enough. It is absolutely essential that shame does not become the only experience we have of ourselves. We need to find a way that will allow us to experience ourselves differently.
One way can be summed up in the three rhyming words: name, claim, tame. We begin by naming our unfulfilled longing. There is deep longing in every human heart. It is difficult to know what this longing is about. Not only can it take time for us to acknowledge our longing. It can also take time to discover what it is for. Eventually we come to realise that our unfulfilled longing is a longing for unconditional love. Each and every one of us needs to know that we are loved and lovable as we are.
The good news of Jesus is that unconditional love is available to us. Unconditional love is available to us in the relationship that God has with each of us. God who is love, loves us as we are, without conditions, without expectations, without requirements. This is the core truth of the Christian Gospel, beautifully described by the late Henri Nouwen as our belovedness. But it remains academic unless we claim it. Sooner or later we need to start claiming the unconditional love that is inside us.
Claiming our belovedness is one thing. We also need to tame what we call the ego or the false self. The false self is built around conditional love. It keeps us in the bondage of accumulation, achievement and the need for human approval. Because of it we tend to find our value in what we have, in what we do and in what other people think of us. Taming the false self is a process of awareness and surrender. First, we recognise the many subtle and manipulative ways the false self is at work in ourselves and in the world around us. Then, we invite the Holy Spirit to tame the power of the false self. Only the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that unites Jesus and his Father, can break the control which the false self has over us.
If we name our unfulfilled longing, claim our belovedness and tame the ways our false self is active in our lives, we will begin to experience ourselves in a positive and liberating way.