Our Worst Critic

There is this one place on the wall in our living room.  A few years back I was painting the walls and I missed this part when I was going back over it with the roller.  A series of drips are clearly visible.  Now this spot is behind the television.  Nobody ever sees this part, but it bothers me anyway because I know it's there.  Sometimes when we critique our own work, we only see the flaws.

I think that it can be like this in life as well.  We have a hard time letting go of the flaws that we see in ourselves.  It doesn't really matter what else we do or what we accomplish, we still see that one flaw.  We need to learn to forgive ourselves.  Everyone's life has a few paint drips and we need to let them go.  Once we have asked God for forgiveness, once we have sought out forgiveness from others, we still have a hard time forgiving ourselves.

Watch this clip from Pastor Sparks.

I think that deep inside of each of us is a concept that we need to be perfect.  We don't expect perfection from others, only from ourselves.  It really is time to let it go.  There is nothing to gain by blaming ourselves but yet we do.

I think that we need to be deliberate about our personal forgiveness.  We need to keep reminding ourselves that it is the past and over.  Once I woke in the night from a bizarre dream.  In the dream I came home and caught some friends breaking into my home.  It seemed real and it took me a while to remind myself that it was a dream.  The really weird part was that the next day I kept remembering the dream and I found myself feeling a little angry and hurt with my friends.  I had to keep reminding myself, "No.  They did not break into our house." Like I said, it was bizarre.

I think that in the same way,  when we keep beating ourselves up with out past mistakes, we need to say, "No.  It is in the past.  I am forgiven,  It is over." Then we need to keep it up until it fades like that silly dream long ago.