I know I have said this before, but I love it when God keeps showing me something; I read it in a book, hear it in a song and in a sermon, podcast or teaching, and then my devotional for the day says basically the same thing all the other places have said, and I’m like, “I think God wants me to pay attention to this.” 😊 Also, I choose to think, “Wow. God loves me so much that He wants me to know this Truth.”

Each year I read through a daily devotional. For the past couple of years, I’ve read through You Are the Beloved Daily Devotional for Spiritual Living containing excerpts from Henri Nouwen’s works. Last week’s devotionals went right along with what God has been reminding me of, teaching, and showing me more deeply the past couple weeks.

From January 10, “When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection…. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.”… My dark side says, “I am no good….I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned.”

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.” – Life of the Beloved

From January 11, “At issue here is the question: “To whom do I belong? God or the world?” Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me….

As long as we belong to this world, we will remain subject to its competitive want and expect to be rewarded for all the good we do. But when we belong to God, who loves us without conditions, we can live as he does. The great conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.” – The Return of the Prodigal Son

It is completely normal to struggle with/battle against self-rejecting thoughts. That is just how our brain works. Some people call the voice in our head our inner critic. I like what Dr. Caroline Leaf said about our inner critic in an Instagram post.

“Your inner critic really is just doing its best and trying to save you from you. The problem is it has no idea how to do this. So, learning how to treat it like we all want to be treated – with kindness, understanding, and curiosity is the key to turning your inner critic into a friend, not enemy.

Your inner critic may sound a lot like a hyper-critical parent or sibling or friend. Someone who let their own fears have too much power and tried to project them onto you. But it’s not helpful to blame others, or yourself, for negative thinking. Treating your inner critic with compassion and understanding does not mean you have to believe what she says.

Many of the fears that come from our inner critic are not rooted in the present moment – they come from past experiences that affected us in a certain way. When you learn how to become a “thought detective” you will know how to rewrite the past and befriend your inner critic.

If we are completely honest, we cannot always control our inner critic. The harder we try to control these thoughts, the more stress we may experience, which can end up making the situation worse. We may feel like we are failing ourselves if the thoughts don’t just “go away.” A better strategy is to questions your thoughts instead of suppressing them.” Dr. Caroline Leaf on Instagram 11/29/21

Again, realizing we are the voice in our head and that we can learn to choose what that voice says is life changing.

We can never make the voice go away. Even as we practice thinking new thoughts, the old thoughts will still come. I have found they come less the more I practice thinking on Truth. And I have found that as I think on Truth and am intentional about taking my thoughts captive that when an old, unhelpful, negative thought comes the Holy Spirit helps me recognize it and remind myself, “that is not how we think anymore and claim Truth.”

I can practice doing this with self-compassion not beating myself up or being mad that I thought the thought or thinking there is something wrong with me or that I am not making progress for thinking the thought. Just realizing, “This is all part of it.”

I have also found that the more I root, ground, center myself in God’s Truth then the more I am able to “surf” the waves of emotions instead of using all my energy trying to prevent myself from being taken over by them.

Keep seeking and discovering!