Repeat After Me: I am Not ‘A Sinner’
You’re actually a force of nature, capable of both construction and destruction
You may be one of the billions who’ve been taught to call yourself ‘a sinner’. This means that you believe (or believed) you’re innately undeserving, flawed, wicked, wrong, and unacceptable. You have been ‘saved’ only by a deity’s goodness and mercy.
Hey. I’ve been there. I had no idea the toxic effect it was having in my subconscious, undermining all attempts of self-worth and inner peace. I was taught to focus my thoughts on being blessed and grateful that the deity ‘saved a wretch like me’.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe how oblivious I was to how harmful the sinner story is. Of course believing that you’re innately wicked and undeserving is going to make you miserable on a deep, unspoken level. Of course I was always looking for signs of my validation.
Insecure people don’t know how to love themselves, and so they’re not fully capable of loving others with authenticity and emotional freedom. Acts of charity will often come from places of insecurity, striving, duty, debt, and seeking approval. Personality types affect how deep the sinner wound goes. But I’d venture to say that many if not most Christians are deeply scarred by this narrative, and don’t realize it yet.
