Self-forgiveness is highly important to mental health and spiritual growth. If we don’t have it, we can stay stymied and even spiral downwards in our relationships to ourselves, God, and others. Sometimes, we are hard on ourselves out of fear of failing even worse if we ‘let ourselves off the hook’. However, it has the opposite effect and leads us away from a healthy and holy future.
Sometimes, people are stuck because of a lack of self-worth. First, we need to receive the gift of forgiveness from God, our Father. By receiving that from the Lord, then we need to internalize that stance and the mind of Christ toward ourselves. Without this, we can stay blocked and stuck in our lives.
Many times, we can be shocked by how we fell. It can seem like we’re trying to hold ourselves to a higher standard, but it’s fundamentally a mindset of pride. We might be surprised by our behavior, but the Lord who is all-knowing is not surprised. It can be helpful to recall times of experiencing the Lord’s closeness prior to falling and recognizing that He foreknew that we were going to fail.
At its root unforgiveness toward ourselves changes our mode of operation to one of not being lovable and then we relate to others out of that mode – be it to the Lord, to ourselves, or to others. We tend to project our own estimation of ourselves onto the Lord and others. That can really skew our perception of others and put us in an impenetrable fortress of self-hatred. Rather than achieving the goal of holding ourselves to a higher standard, we can so thoroughly discourage ourselves that we don’t even want to engage with the Lord in a relationship. It can set us up for failure. When we open to the grace of the Lord and receive His forgiveness, we can gain spiritual freedom.
In Matthew 7:1 and again Luke 6, the Lord tells us not to judge. He doesn’t say not to judge others, but not to judge. Judging is beyond our wisdom and insight. We don’t understand what makes us tick the way the Lord does and He alone has the ability to do so rightly. Blessed Julian of Norwich said, “God sees sin as pain in us.” When we see sin as coming from pain, we are able to look at it, acknowledge it, repent of it, and receive the great gift of forgiveness.
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