*This post is a VERY rough draft and should be viewed as such. Let me know your thoughts!
I know a lot of people that are really good at expecting a lot from themselves. In fact, I regularly interact with people that confide in me when they don’t live up to their own expectations. This is probably because I am a pastor, it’s part of my job to listen; it’s probably one of the most important parts of my job, actually.
When I find myself in this position, my usual response is to try and help the individual find grace for themselves, to evaluate whether or not the falling short of their expectations is the result of some behavior that needs to be changed, and to help them establish new goals to grow towards. It is no small thing helping someone see themselves in a new light, and I am certain that if this ever truly happens it is because God has intervened, because after all, I could never expect to change a person’s heart. I’m just an ordinary guy, and frankly, I fall short of a lot of my own self-imposed expectations.
This is where my conflict grows from. It is easy to extend grace to others while heaping unrealistic expectations on ourselves, expectations that we use to build self loathing and discontent. Now, I am not writing this from one of those moments, I am writing from a moment of clarity, a moment of reflection, so please, no pity party sympathy here ;)
What I have come to realize is that there is a delicate tension between failing ourselves and feeling the weight of regret and helping others up from their failures. We like to beat ourselves up as some sort of self inflicted restitution, but this is not restitution. No, in fact this behavior is pride. The reason it is easy to “extend grace” to others and not ourselves is because deep down, in the darkest corridors of the soul, we feel like our failures are more important than those of others. My failure is a bigger deal than your failure. And perhaps your failure has grander consequences in this life than mine does, but I am supposed to be above failure at all.
It is in fact, the greatest act of humility that any person can display to simply admit wrong doing and then to move on. It is pride that makes us feel as though we have some sort of right to carry around our offenses and presume ourselves to be beyond the realms of grace and forgiveability (I made that word up). The person that can sit beside them self on the couch and have an honest examination of their own heart without making excuses or having ridiculous expectations of who they should be, but instead can simply confront their own issues is the person who has mastered humility. And yes, in this instance humility looks a great deal like confidence.
It should, but it is not self confidence, it is confidence in another, in one who forgives.
The person that can do this deep self examination must have experienced a tremendous life change, the person that can work through their deepest, darkest issues and come through the other side into the light of day can only do so because of the Grace they have experienced in their own life.
Are you feeling the weight of your actions? Is it easier to forgive others than yourself? Then admit your pride, and submit yourself to God for He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
