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Self-Image
What is Our Calling?
Is your significance tied too closely to achievements—building buildings, reaching business goals, acquiring material possessions, climbing career ladders? There’s nothing inherently wrong with these. But if you lost them, would your confidence completely crumble? If your sense of worth depends on them, what happens when you reach the top of the ladder, only to discover that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall?
The problem is that our world has a system of values that is upside down from the way God determines value. It lacks any sense of what Scripture describes as “calling,” or what Christians later termed “vocation”—a perspective that God has called and equipped people to serve Him through their work in the world. Instead, our culture encourages us to climb a work/identity ladder that is ultimately self-serving, and often self-destructive.
Climbing that ladder can be very misleading. The higher one goes, the more one’s identity, value, and security tend to depend on the nature of one’s work. But what happens if we lose our position, titles, or high-level compensation? Perhaps this explains why severe emotional problems—drug and alcohol abuse, abuse of spouse and children, divorce, even suicide—often accompany job loss. If our significance relies on our job, then it dies with our job.
God calls us to a far more stable basis for significance. He wants us to establish our identity in the fact that we are His children, created by Him to carry out good works as responsible people in His kingdom (Eph. 2:10). This is our calling or vocation from God. According to Scripture, our calling:
- is irrevocable (Rom. 11:29).
- is from God; He wants to let us share in Christ’s glory (2 Thess. 2:14).
- is a function of how God has designed us (Eph. 2:10).
- is an assurance that God will give us everything we need to serve Him, including the strength to remain faithful to Him (1 Cor. 1:7-9).
- is what we should be proclaiming as our true identity (1 Pet. 2:5, 9).
- carries us through suffering (1 Pet. 2:19-21).
- is rooted in peace, no matter what the circumstances in which we find ourselves (1 Cor. 7:15-24).
- is focused on eternal achievements, not merely temporal ones (Phil. 3:13—4:1).
Above all else, believers are called to character development, service to others, and loyalty to God. These can be accomplished wherever we live or work, whatever our occupational status or position in society. If we pursue these, we can enjoy great satisfaction and significance. No matter what happens on the job, we can join Paul in saying, “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
The Word in Life Study Bible, New Testament Edition, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville; 1993), p. 180.
What Would You Change about Yourself?
When asked what we would change about ourselves, more than half of us want to alter our tonnage. Another 32 percent want to doctor our bodies, age, or intelligence. A fifth of us would love to change our height or hair. More than half of us admitted we would rather get run over by a truck than gain 150 pounds.
Reader’s Digest, July, 1996, p. 40
Joe Namath
Few of us look in the mirror and come to the conclusion of Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath. During his heyday as a player, Namath wrote a book titled I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow...’Cause I Get Better-Looking Every Day.
Our Daily Bread, March-May, 1996, p. for March 9
Quote
Until you make peace with who you are,
you’ll never be content with what you have.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. Timothy 6:6
God’s Little Instruction Book for Men, (Honor Books, Tulsa, OK; 1996), p. 41
Tattoo
Once walking through the twisted little streets of Kowloon in Hong Kong, I came upon a tattoo studio. In the window were displayed samples of the tattoos available. On the chest or arms you could have tattooed an anchor or flag or mermaid or whatever. But what struck me with force were three words that could be tattooed on one’s flesh, Born to lose. I entered the shop in astonishment and pointing to those words, asked the Chinese tattoo artist, “Does anyone really have that terrible phrase, Born to lose, tattooed on his body.” He replied, “Yes, sometimes.” “But,” I said, “I just can’t believe that anyone in his right mind would do that.” The Chinese man simply tapped his forehead and said in broken English, “Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.”
Norman Vincent Peal in Power of the Plus Factor
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest in Monte Carlo—and came in third.
Source unknown
Survey
13% of American women consider themselves pretty. 28% of American men think themselves handsome. 94% of American men would change something about their looks if they could. 99% of American women would change something about their looks if they could.
From the book, 100% American, by Daniel Evan Weiss, quoted in Parade Magazine, December 31, 1989, p. 5
Traded for Uniforms
Lindy Chappoten, a pitcher of middling talents who played for the old Shawnee Hawks in the Class D Sooner League, was once traded to the Texarkana Bears for 20 uniforms.
Source unknown
Self Image by Age 5
Psychological studies establish that by age five a child has formed a fairly definite impression of himself. The same studies reveal that self-esteem is not closely related to social position, family work background, education or any combination of such factors. A young child sees himself from the reflections of those close to him, mainly his parents. How they react to his activities largely determines the self image he builds.
Jack Eicholz in Homemade, Dec., 1989
Quote
If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him a favorable impression of himself. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source unknown
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