Day 313: Don't Pressure Yourself

1 John 3:20

for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.

Romans 8:1

There is no condemnation now for those who live in union with Christ Jesus.

Some of us are way too hard on ourselves. Many of us can say that we are perfectionist. How many times have we looked down upon ourselves for something we did, or felt crappy because we felt like we could have done better? How many times have a put ourselves down because in our eyes we did something wrong. This even goes into self-harm, how many of us have harmed ourselves because we feel like we need to be better or do better or we are not satisfied with who we are. I know I have, done all of these things.

The thing about being a perfectionist and being too hard on ourselves is that we force ourselves to grow. However we do it in a harmful way. As an artist I am a very passionate person, and in general I am very hard on myself, and that allowed me to push to constantly being better, but talking down on myself and hurting myself when I was less than I thought I should be was not a healthy way to get there. I had to realize that discipline and being hard on myself are two completely different things. There is nothing wrong with self-discipline however there is a lot wrong with self-harm. God does not condemn us so why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we think of ourselves as unworthy when to Jesus we are worth everything. No we are not perfect and that is why we need Jesus. He completes us. That perfection we are seeking is only found in Christ, nowhere else. No matter how much we beat ourselves up, or talk down to ourselves, the only one that can make us whole and perfect is Jesus Christ.

Many of us have gone through very tragic things and blamed ourselves from them. Many of us have been abused and mistreated and that has caused us to think we are not enough. Well let me tell you right here and now; YOU ARE ENOUGH! God knew you were enough the moment He made the decision to create you. Don’t spend time coming down on yourself because of what others think or how people have treated you. God’s will for our life is not for us to be mistreated by others or ourselves. He wants us to live with Him and allow our lives to lead others to Him. God does not want us to be out here harming ourselves, it is not HIs desire that we hurt ourselves in any way. God is a healer, and He loves us through the pain. He loves us beyond our sin, and He sees us in our darkest hour. We a meant to live in unity with Him, not trying so hard to be perfect that we separate ourselves from Him.

We sometimes put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect Christians. When we decide to give our lives to Christ and are dedicated to serving Him ever day of our lives, we find ourselves under our own microscope. What I mean is we want so bad to please God and to live right that we pressure ourselves out of living. Meaning we are often so caught up in getting it right that we can get it wrong. We cannot constantly condemn ourselves for the things we have done or the things we do, no one changes overnight. We all want to be people of God, living right by the word and living a life free of sin, but we must find the line that goes beyond self-discipline and into self-condemnation, or pressuring ourselves to be perfect. The thing about us trying to be perfect on our own is, as I’ve mentioned before we can never get there. The thing about pressure is, too much of it can cause great damage. Think about how much damage we cause ourselves by feeling pressured by the need to be perfect, and the need to always get it right. We are human, and part of our humanity is that sometimes we will get it wrong, sometimes things won’t go the way we planned. But God is so good in the sense that even when we do get it wrong He is there to forgive us and teach us what is right. If we never get something wrongs we’ll never know what was right. Life isn’t about being perfect it is about the willingness to admit our need of a savior. It is about being willing to learn and grow.

All this to say, do not pressure yourself. Do not condemn us and HE created us and knows everything about us. If God, who created us and knows everything there is to know about us and knows what we are going to do before we do it, if He finds no reason to condemn us, let’s not do it to ourselves.  Living in unity with Christ means that there is no condemnation, none.

Reflection

1. Have you ever been too hard on yourself?
2. Has your need to be perfect caused you to harm yourself, whether physically, emotionally or mentally.
3. How has God helped you with that?  

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. If you are that person surrender your worries to God. If you know someone who struggles with this pray for them and reach out to them and let them know they are loved by God and by you.

I love you, I really do. If you are struggling with self harm, please do not suffer in silence, reach out to someone, Anyone. Find someone who will pray with you. I love you and I hope you have an amazing day. Please share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 313!

Day 123: Don't Wear Yourself Out

Today’s message ironically is about taking it easy, slowing it down, stopping for a moment and taking a breath. As I am currently in the midst of finals and being an RA at the end of the year, so that means preparing myself and a whole floor of college students to move out. Getting plane tickets and storages. Trying to sleep, which I have not do much of the past two days, in the last 48 hour I’ve slept for 8 of them. It is hard for me to sit down at the moment, everything is so crazy, trying to make sure I stay on top of everything as much as possible. With all this going on I find myself falling apart, losing it.

Genesis 2:2-3

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Mark 2:27

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Exodus 34:21

"You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest, you shall rest.

John 4:3-6

So he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.

Mark 4:38

Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"

Sometimes we can get so caught in everything we are doing and things we need to do that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. We forget that sometimes we have to give ourselves a little TLC. There is nothing wrong with sitting down and resting, especially after a lot of hard work.

Our generation gets a lot of slack for being lazy but when it is time to work we are probably the hardest workers in the room. Sometimes we can work a little too hard, and overwork ourselves, and we don’t want to do that. We have to take care of the body God has given we cannot run it into the ground. We have to recuperate and rest when it’s needed.

I’ll take myself for an example, beware I am about to talk a lot about acting so bear with me for a minute. I’ve had times in classes where teachers have made me sit out because I have tried to work when I was sitting or hurt. For those of you who are performers or in the theater you know how hard the craft can be on our bodies. Today I was in stage combat class, I hadn’t eaten all day, it’s five in the evening and my knees have been bothering me the whole day. As I go to start the fight, I raised my sword, lost my balance and fell. From that point on my knees were hurting even worse. In the meantime, I had a paper due by six so I was taking every little break I could to get it finished. My partner asked me if I was okay, not wanting to stop the fight because our big test is coming up, I pushed through it. Eventually, I had to keep stopping because my knee was throbbing. At one point I stopped the fight and just hopped on one leg because I could not take the pain. That is when I decided to sit down. When I tried to get up and do the fight again my teacher would not allow me to out of fear that I would hurt myself more. I wanted to keep going because I did not want to miss out on any practice. It was good for me to sit down and not do anything because if not I would have hurt myself and not be able to take the test coming up.

All this to say, Know your limits. I know we all want to be limitless and superhuman, but our bodies can only take so much. Listen to your body when it’s telling you to stop or rest, most times it’s right.

Take a look at the above scriptures, God rested after creating for six days. The Sabbath is known as the day of rest, the scripture commands the people not to do anything on those days but rest. Jesus rested when He was tired and slept. Jesus was on that boat getting some rest when the disciples were freaking out about the storm.

Take a break when you can, even if it five minutes take the time to check in with yourself and make sure you are okay, Your physical health is just as important as your spiritual health. We have to stay healthy and not run ourselves to the ground.

Reflection/ Prayer Time

Just take a moment to check in with yourself, ask God to help you recognize when you are overworking yourself and rest. Take the time to rest, your physical body.

I love you I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 124!