Self-hatred vs. the Gospel (1 Pet. 5:7)

June 14, 2020 by Jack Wilkie  https://www.focuspress.org/2020/06/14/self-hatred-vs-the-gospel/ 

The following is a feature from the June 2020 issue of Think magazine, an issue focused on worldly self-love vs. Biblical self-care. To subscribe, click here.

I apologize as this may be a weird, uncomfortable, challenging article, but I write it because I was led to a weird, uncomfortable, challenging conclusion recently: I hate myself.

I’ve long been familiar with the term self-loathing or self-hatred, and naturally, it has always sounded like a terrible condition. I’ve always felt bad for those who struggle with it. But I assumed it entailed walking around all day telling yourself how terrible you are, not being able to look at yourself in the mirror, and the like. The symptoms aren’t always quite that extreme, though. They can seem normal, and it’s easy to convince one’s self that everybody probably goes through the same things. A few examples from my personal experience:

• I can’t make friends. In most of my interactions with people, I assume that I’m wasting their time and so I keep the interactions only as long as necessary. I don’t invite people to spend time with me because I assume that they have a million other things they’d rather do.
• I struggle to respond to messages from people because I assume they will think negatively of my response if I don’t get it just right. (If you’ve ever sent me a short, harmless message and waited days for a response, now you know why.)
• I can’t accept compliments from others. It makes me deeply uncomfortable anytime someone says something nice about me, and I try to steer the conversation in another direction as quickly as possible.
• I constantly have to have goals in life to feel like I’m striving for something, but accomplishing them never brings any joy. I hit my weight loss goal… but I’m still too heavy. I wrote a book and had it published… but people will probably think it’s stupid. At the heart of it all, I can’t be kind to myself. There’s always something to nitpick that I did wrong, or didn’t do well enough. I can never be happy with who I am as Christian or preacher, or husband, or human. I go to sleep at night thinking about the next thing I have to change about myself. For the longest time, I viewed that as a good thing—a hunger to improve. I had no idea how wrong I was.

Dealing with those problems one at a time, they can all be easy to explain away for some reason or another. Taken altogether, though, these symptoms indicate that I view myself as unworthy of love, praise, or attention. Though it’s incredibly out of character for me to open up about myself in such raw terms (again, I don’t feel worthy of such attention), I decided to publish this article for two reasons. 

First, I’m writing because I hope it’s helpful to others. I’m not opening up about this looking for pity, so please don’t take it that way. I’m sharing because I’m certain there are plenty of others like me. And, for those people, it’s entirely possible they can relate to some or all of these symptoms. More importantly, they might have these symptoms without understanding the deep-seated issue that connects them. For me, I knew I struggled to make friends, or that it felt awkward when someone said something nice about me. But I had no idea those problems existed because I held such an unbiblical view of myself. Knowing that has given me the ability to work on the problem, and so I hope this article can help someone else in the same way.

Second, I’m writing because it’s important that people know the right answers to the problem. 

With the rise in mental health awareness, discussions of issues like self-loathing are easy to find. Seems like every blogger, podcaster, and Instagrammer has some kind of message on the issue. Unfortunately, most of them leave God out of the equation. Those that do factor God into their message often do so by twisting Scriptures like Jeremiah 29:11 and Philippians 4:13 to say something they don’t mean. Incorrect solutions to our problems won’t help us get better, but beyond that they typically make things worse in the process. Some of those incorrect solutions:

• The answer is not to tell myself how “awesome” I am. This is the message preached from the rooftops to young people today. They’re constantly told that the way out is to realize how great we are. The problem is, we all inevitably get into situations that remind us just how weak and broken we are. We find out quite quickly that “I’m awesome” is a lie when we revert into a sin struggle, or fail at some work or school task, or come short in some other way. It rings so hollowly as celebrities and internet-famous people tell us to love ourselves, because the unspoken implication is, “You have to love yourself because there’s no guarantee someone else will.” 
• The answer is not to open up the Bible looking for verses that tell me how great I am. There is a true, wonderful, Biblical answer to this problem, but it is not found in using a self-centred approach to the Scriptures. Inserting ourself into verses, taking them out of context, and claiming promises that weren’t intended for us does not make things better. It just deludes us. 
• The answer is not to accept the problem and “tough it out.” This was often the message in days gone by, the message that caused the pendulum swing we’re seeing today toward total openness in mental health discussions. God placed people around us for a reason. He wants us to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15) and bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), and that requires us to let others know about our problems. That doesn’t mean we wallow in our problems or constantly keep others at our mercy. It means letting someone know when we’re struggling and asking them to pray for us. Bottling it up and trying to “tough it out” worked in the short term, but it led to all kinds of consequences long term. Picking a scab over and over is unhealthy, but it’s even more unhealthy to leave the wound infected and never treat it. 
• The answer is not to be judgmental or bitter toward others in order to bring them down with you. Self-hating can lead toward cynicism and dislike of others that is horribly unchristian. But viewing others negatively does nothing to help ourselves or them. 

Instead, the answer is found in a thorough understanding of God’s Word. The creation narrative shows us just how much value God placed on human life. He made Adam in His own image, created him by hand, placed him in a beautiful garden and gave him purpose and companionship. Each and every human life has that inherent value as a unique creation of the almighty God.

Still, we struggle. Human relationships leave their scars on us. Our own struggle with sin makes us feel dirty and unlovable. That’s where the love of Christ comes in. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8b). He took us from enemies and reconciled us to be His children (Romans 5:10, Colossians 1:21). Unlike those verses taken out of context, when we see the whole picture we realize that God’s love is even greater. He doesn’t love us because we’re “awesome.” He loves us no matter what. He loves us when we’re the prodigal who has disappointed Him. He loves us when we’re Zaccheus or the sinful woman, whom society has cast out. He loves us when we think we’re unlovable. That’s what we so desperately need to hear. 

It’s a struggle grappling with the negativity I feel toward myself. Though I’ve known these powerful truths my entire life, they don’t always sink in and give the peace I so desperately need. That’s why it’s important to not just read the Bible but to meditate on it. Give the truth of God’s love the chance to truly take root in your mind. It’s important to be able to stop those negative thought patterns in their tracks and replace them with truth from God’s Word. Similarly, it’s important to share these struggles with people in the family God has given us who can remind us of the Good News and offer a loving course correction when we drift toward self-hatred.

For those of us who grew up in the church, we’ve probably heard “Jesus Loves Me” sung a thousand times. It’s easy to miss the weight of that so-called kid's song. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is a life-changing fact. It changes lives because it tells us we’re loved. It tells us we’re valued. It goes on to remind us that though we are weak, He is strong. My worth does not come from my greatness, my strength, my accomplishments. My worth comes from the fact that, even at my worst, the King of Kings loved me enough to die for me. 

Like so many of the bad things in life, the world can correctly diagnose the problem. Where they fall short is in their solutions. Our only hope is in Jesus Christ. He is the answer to all of our problems. Whatever your struggle may be, whether you share mine or have one of your own, realize that relying on ourselves only leads to pain and future collapse. Cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).