8/12/2019 Be Your Own Best Friend

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8/12/2019 Be Your Own Best Friend

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There is a comment in Emerson 1s JOURNAL which is in the same spiri t . Hewrote,

Henry Thoreau made, last night, the fine remark that, as long

as a man stands n his own way, everything seems to be in hisway   •

A person, I believe, can be his own worst enemy, and there is a fine sense in whia person needs to learn something about being his own best friend.

There are, at least, three facts that determine individually what we are andwhat we do with our l ives. Heredity. Environment. And a personal response.

Heredity is our personal heritage. Environment is our personal set of circumstances for the days of our l ives. Personal response is what individually wecreate with the heritage and circumstances that are ours.

To be sure, heredity and environment are pov1erful factors n shaping ourlives, but they are not the sole factors. I f they were, then people with fortunagenes and ideal circumstances would invariably be strong and solid folk, while

people with blemished backgrounds and poor circumstances would invariably be weakpersonal failures. And i t 1s never as clear-cut as that. There is this furtherelement of personal response - in which a person accepts responsibility for himself, his choices and devotes himself, with the grace of God, to making somethingof worth out of his own l i fe .

The hinge,, n the Parable of the ProdigalSSon, that turns the story from astudy in a young man's descent into irresponsible self-destruction f eM '&H: it to astudy in a young man's ascent into responsible personhood is one beief phrase inthe midst of that parable, 1Alhen he came to himself ••• That is a great moment,a decisive moment, n any person's l ife when he stops blaming his parents, or histimes, or any set of circumstances and acknowledges responsibility for his choicesand the shape of his l i fe .

I t 1s not what happens to a person; i t s the person to whom i t happens sogoes an old saying. Well, i t s both - but our danger ·is that we shall takerefuge under the cover of what happens to us, without accept responsibility forthe response of the person to whom i t happens.

I feel this l i t t le book is very close to a gospel truth when i t declares, Yoare free when you accept the responsibility for your choices .

COMPASSION FOR OURSELVES Second, beyond responsibil'ity for ourselves, we needa measure of compassion for ourselves. To quote::.

Part of the person is pushing himself down, but anotherpart 'is crying out that that 's not where he belongs. I t s

a question of having some compassion for yourself .

I don't think that I've ever heard ' it put just that way. Taken by i tself , i t

could be a rather dangerous doctrine •••• leading to self-pity•••• but building on afoundation of responsibility for oneself, then compassion for oneself makes a

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sinner. But might there not be a place for a kind of compassion for oneself?the questioner in this book,

"I can think of hundreds of times I 've wanted to be wise andthoughtful and mature and gracious and al l those lovely things

and ended up acting like a brat "

which the author responds,

But that s just what everybody does. Why don't you think aboutthe times you were wise and kind? Why remember and dwell on de-feats instead of victories?"

question. So often we put ourselves down for failures and defeats of the

as though that 1-fere al l ve ever had been, or ever could be.

One is reminded of that Gospel scene where Jesus f i rs t encountered Simonthe big fisherman, and called him to discipleship. Luke records Peter'sas "depart from me, 16rd, for I am a sinful man •••• But Jesus refused

depart. And that kind of decisive encounter has happened again and again inof the centuries. We are at f irs t shamed by Jesus, because Hisseems to expose al l of our imperfections. But sometimes He gets across

us the message that every person is made in the image of God, that there isin us, worth working on, and that with His help there can e more

more goodness.

I f we had parents whose love was wise, there were times when they correcteddisciplined us for our follies and our failures, but they also had a way

letting us know of their love and their confidence in us. How much we owe toi f they could keep us from seeing ourselves simply as "not o. K. persons",

instead could lead us to a glimpse of ourselves as 0. K. persons". Oror friends.

What our parents or partners or close friends have done for some of us area hint of the saving, steadying prnver of Jesus Christ. He does not gloss oversins, and indeed insists that we be honest and repentant, but he keeps in-

there is something much more to us than our faults, that there issomething uniquely good and promising in each of us, and He gives power to

the children of God .

These words from a recent article by Charles A. Shock in The Christian Homewhat we are saying in th'is regard:

Made in God 1 s 'image, then, means an outlook of 1I'm OK andyou're OK 1 • I t means that·we are children of God's universe;we have a right to be here I t means accepting the reali tythat we are accepted by God, even when we judge ourselves tobe unacceptable. I t means being set free to love, to hope,to expect delightful surprises, and to celebrate the marvelous,priceless gif t of l i fe".

to think of i t , there is a beautiful way in which a person can have compassiononeself".

~ V I T PROPER SELF-REGARD Finally, there is a k'ind of summary

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there is a great freedom that comes with proper self-regard.

For one thing, we are freed to love others. The book puts i t very pointedly:If you don't have i t , you can' t give i t . VJhich is a commentary on such New Testa

ment verses, as love your neighbor::-;as yourself , or We love, because He f irs t

loved us . To rightly love others, we must have some sense of respect and affection

for ourselves. t=t when we can l i f t up our heads as persons whom God so loved 

then we are freed to share some love with others.

Again, we are freed to take pleasure in the good things that happen toothers. Listen to this quotation:

If you become more, i t doesn't make me less. There is roomfor many marvelous people in the world and many wonderfulachievements. When we really g r ~ p this, we take pleausrein what others are able to do. We do not feel diminished.And we are able to do our own thing without feeling anxiousor guilty toward anyone.

What a refreshing viewpoint in a world where a person's rise often seems todepend upon another's fall , and where too often there is a kind of perverse sense

of satisfaction in another person's stumbles. I 've often stopped to think about

those words in Paul 1 s love let ter, because I have not always measured up tothem, Love does not rejoice at the wrong, but rejoices in the right - which n away is what this book is saying, that with the right self-love, we are freed tofind pleasure in the good that others do, and in the good news that comes toothers.

Christian self-respect is a quality of the spir i t that Christ kindles andhelps to keep in our l ives. I t unites humility and assurance in a new combination. You can see the synthesis at work in the Beatitudes read earlier in our

service. There Jesus celebrates humility wicth such statements as blessed are themeek - that is , the teachable, the open. blessed are the poor in spiri t . Andthen He builds from that to such confidence and declares, You are the salt of theearth; you are the l ight of the world•••• le t your l ight so shine before men thatthey may see your good works •••• In the Christian l i fe , humility and assurance

can come together in beautiful balance.

CLOSING SECTION One of the harvests of a ministry of lengthening years is the

number of people that a minister is privileged to callfriend . And as I think of the lives that have touched mine in the years of my

own ministry, so many of them are personal confirmations of the truth I have beentalking about and interpreting today. These people are not-strutting or arrogant,

neither are they self-demeaning or servile. They are honest about theirlimitations and failures, but through faith in Christ, they have been given acertain self-respect that frees them from the burdens of guil t and inferiority.

In the midst of pretty frustrating days, this is s t i l l the steady good newsof the Gospel - that through the savingsfriendship of Jesus, a person can movefrom being his own worst enemy to being his own good friend - not in self-conceit,but in self-confidence that becomes a witness to amazing grace , and a channelof outgoing and ongoing love.

PRAYER What we have tried to put into words do Thou now by thy spiri t put intosome receptive l i fe here this hour, we pray, 0 Thou who so loved the

world that you gave Jesus ·•th4t whoever believed on him should not perish but have l i fe .