It almost reminds me of one of those notes we passed in grade school about our crushes, except the object of our affection, or lack thereof, is ourselves. Nonetheless, the question remains. Do you like yourself? Let’s take it all the way home. Do you love yourself? Most of the. Creative people I know seem to exist on a continuum between egomania and self-loathing and a lot of us exist at the poles of that continuum. Needless to say this is a bad thing. Christian humility, and sometimes false humility, often pushes us to the self-loathing side. This is especially bad. As a mater of fact I would say it hampers us tremendously. While egomania is certainly bad, a healthy self-love is entirely biblical and we can’t have healthy relationships without it. Don’t believe me?
Think about when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment. He replied with what we in the church call the Great Commandment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with al your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39. Did you catch it? Love your neighbor AS YOURSELF. You simply cannot, properly obey this commandment without healthy self-esteem. Now this is not to say you should not hate sin and want to eradicate it from your life, but if you loathe yourself and you love your neighbor as yourself, the results could be disastrous.
A huge part of this is remembering who you are in Christ. You are made in the image of God. You are His workmanship creates in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do. This means you are not accidental. You were made on purpose for a purpose. Most importantly, you must remember the high price Jesus paid to save you, so that you could spend forever with Him in heaven. That is no small thing. If Jesus likes you, maybe you should like you.
Let’s carry this further. Do you like your creative work? Once again, false humility can step in here and kick us around. It’s time we stop being our own worst critics. Not everyone will like your work. That is okay, as a matter of fact, it’s virtually essential. Work everyone likes is pretty “vanilla” and likely has very little to say. We who have been given creative gifts, need to create the work that the Lord lays on our hearts, most of which is designed to reach people, touch people or bless people. Once again we need to think about Jesus. He loves everyone, yet while He walked the earth, some loved Him while others hated Him. He did not moderate His message to appeal to the masses. He spoke the Gospel truth and allowed people to choose how they responded. Our work needs to speak truth. It will reach who it was designed to reach.
We have to be okay with that.
Most of the time, the critics sway us. We’ll manage to hear the one negative comment over and above the acclamation of those who love the work. Left to our own devices, many of us would just as soon create and withhold it from the public, having the joy of creation and avoiding the discomfort of criticism. That is not only incorrect, I would suggest it’s sin. No, we need to create our best work and put it out there for the world to see. This is the purpose of art, but it means we have to come to the place where we like out work enough to show it to the world, and let the chips fall where they may.
Are you at the place where you can say, “I like me, and I like my work?”
I know it’s hard, but try. After all, God likes you. He loves you.
AMOKArts 