God put this on my heart a few weeks ago, and I would like to share it with you all:
Why do we feel like in order to lift something up, we have to tear something else down?
For most of my life, I’ve been surrounded by a generation that is victim to chronic self-deprecation. A lot of times this is termed as “self-deprecating humor”, but just because you can laugh about it doesn’t mean there isn’t pain beneath the sarcastic smile.
Often the logic behind self-deprecation is “If I bash myself first, no one else can.” We think we can immunize ourselves with our own self-criticisms. As a generation, this has made us very self-aware, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However. We’ve grown accustomed to defining ourselves by our weaknesses by putting them on display as a backwards form of self-defense.
And that’s not okay.
Sometimes self-deprecation is done with good intentions. This happens a lot in conversations on gender equality. A common narrative is men who support feminist issues throwing around phrases such as “most men are garbage/lazy/smelly/etc.” in order to raise women up. While this is certainly a worthy cause, why do these men feel like they have to degrade themselves in order for women to be lifted up? Why do men have to be garbage and women have to be princesses? Or even the other way around? Men and women can both be great, and one does not have to be viewed as “less than” in order for the other to be honored.
I believe this all goes back to the root of comparison. Something has to be “better than” or “less than”, measured on a flat linear scale.
Last time I checked, the world isn’t flat. It’s round.
There are dimensions, different perspectives, peaks, valleys, oceans, deserts, and they’re all different and beautiful in their own right. We’ve gotten so used to a world of statistics and best/worst’s and winners and losers that this has shaped the way we view the world, others, and ourselves. God created everything in the world and said it was good. He didn’t create the ocean and the land and say “the ocean is great and the land is bad”; it was all good!
The only exceptions are light and darkness and humanity. “God said that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:4). God created light, but He did not create darkness. The darkness was already there, and He created light to be separate from the lingering darkness. He did not say the darkness was good. Then, when He created Adam and Eve, “God saw all that He had made – and it was very good!” (Gen 1:31).
Now, God said “very good” after humanity was created, but it was not separate from the rest of creation. God looked at ALL He made: the sky, the sea, the birds and fish, the light and humankind, and ALL of it, together, was very good.
The completion of creation was very good.
You are included in that creation, and you are very good.
You are not a piece of garbage. You are not a failure. You are not an inconvenience. You are not a waste of space.
You are very good.
You are a golden thread in the tapestry of God’s divine creation, without which the tapestry would fray and unravel. You play an important part in this world. God would not have created you if He did not have a plan and purpose for your life. He sees you and knows you. You have divine purpose and value.
So don’t go around spraying the graffiti of self-doubt and self-deprecation on what God already created to be perfect. Let Him wash that all away, so you can live in harmony with the world God created; male and female, lion and lamb, sun and rain, it is all very good, and it wouldn’t be that way without you. So don’t tell yourself that you are anything less than the crown jewel of God’s creation, and once you see yourself like that, you will begin to see the magnificent beauty of every piece of God’s creation. This is the message of equality, established by the divine creator Himself.
