Unka Glen

melina-mattos asked: Hey Unka, It’s been years since I’ve been facing extremely low self esteem. I’m actually getting better, but I still have a hard time believing people when they give me complements. I don’t like a lot of things about me, and I feel insecure when I’m around a group of people. I know that Jesus loves me, and that I’m not here to impress people, but God. But it’s difficult, and even with God’s love changing me everyday, I can’t seem to change this…. any help?

Unka Glen answered: I have an exercise I do with my ministry staff, we go around the circle, and one at a time we each give compliments to the first person in the circle. Then we go to the next person in the circle, and so on. But that’s not the exercise, the exercise is— the only thing you’re allowed to say in return is: “thank you”. The first time we did that exercise, I thought half of them were going to lose it, and the other half were going to have a stroke. Try it in your Bible study, and you’ll see what I mean.

Leaving aside the fact that saying “thank you” is just good manners, it’s really about being vulnerable. It’s about standing, unguarded, in the spotlight of love. If you’re doing as well as you say you are with your self esteem issues, then maybe this is about being open and vulnerable to letting others esteem you as well. Sure, there are some people around you that you can’t trust, and sure, some people will compliment you as a way of manipulating you. But in the end, if you know what you bring to the table, and people confirm that in you, it should have the ring of truth to it. 

Remember, humiliation is not the same thing as humility. When you put yourself down, you dishonor God, because you’re calling something He made junk, and that just ain’t cool. But when you humble yourself, you can say: “He is the Vine, I am the branches, apart from Him I can do nothing, but connected to Him, I can do anything, I be anybody. I am connected to God, and who’s to say where I end and He begins? Who or what can separate us? We are as one, and I am lost in Him.”