Jeanne DeCelles gave this talk at a womenâs leadership training event. She began with many Scripture passages having to do with self-image. She discussed some origins of poor self-image, such as self-love, envy, sloth, pride and sin. She equipped women in pastoral positions with ways to deal with poor self-image among the women they relate to, using prayer, deliverance, repentance and relationship-building.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
[Tape begins after Jeanne has already begun speaking.]
JEANNE: . . . âSelf-imageâ is a term that comes up a lot. And if youâre heading young women, you may be hearing about it from them. They may keep telling you that they have a very poor self-image.
Most psychologists say that this is a problem especially evident in women. In fact, most psychologists say that all women have a poor self-image. One reason that women may tend to have this problem is that we tend to judge ourselves on the basis of how we perceive other people thinking of us. If we perceive that other people are thinking badly of us, then we think badly of ourselves. We âkey inâ more on what we think other people think of us and on how they react to us than a man does. Thatâs both a curse and a blessing. Itâs a curse because it can make us feel crummy, but itâs a blessing because thatâs what we mean when we say women are more sensitive to the feelings of others.
So, first, the world teaches that self-image is very important, and that we must love ourselves in order to effectively love others. In fact, we should serve ourselves and take every opportunity to better ourselves. Sometimes the world equates a good self-image with success, with a skinny waistline, or other worldly pursuits. EstĂ©e Lauder, who has a world all her own, you know [light laughter], teaches that self-image has to beâin order to be good, has to be slick, beautiful and sexy. And if you love yourself, then you look like, and you are with, the so-called âbeautiful people.â
For the feminists, the newest and best self-image for a woman is to be a man. Now, when I wrote this talk, I think I found something like 25 or 30 passages in Scripture. And obviously, weâre not going to have time for me to give you all of them. Iâm going to go through them rather quicklyânot all of them, but most of them. And when I give you the citation, just jot down the citation and listen to the passage.
The first one is Philippians 2:2â3:
There must be no competition among you, and no conceit; but everyone is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first, but everybody thinks of the other personâs interests instead. In your minds you must be as Jesus was: his state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave. . . .
John 7:17 [this is John 7:16, 18]:
My teaching is not from myself: it is from the one who sent me; . . . When a manâs doctrine is his own he is hoping to get honor for himself; but when he works for the honor of the one who sent him, then he is sincere. . . .
John 13:34: âI give you a new commandment: love one another. . . .â
In John 12:25âIâm not going to read it, but itâs an imageâJesus gives the image of himself, and he gives an instruction to us about losing our life: âHe who would lose his life will save it, and he who would save his life will lose it.â
John 3:29 [this is John 3:30], in which John the Baptist gives his statement of self-abnegation: âhe must increase, and I must decrease.â
John 5:41: âAs for human approval, this means nothing to me.â
Mark 8:34: âHe called the people and his disciples to him and said, âIf anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me.ââ [Emphasis is Jeanneâs.]
Ephesians 4 [verse 1]: âI implore you! Lead a life worthy of your calling. Bear with one another charitably in complete selflessness.â [Emphasis is Jeanneâs.]
1 Corinthians 3:16 [ and v. 22]:
Donât you realize that you are Godâs temple, and the Spirit of God lives among you? . . . So there is nothing to boast about in anything human: Paul, Apollo, Cephas, the world, life and death, the present and the future are all your servants. But you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to you.
1 Corinthians 1:30 [and v. 31]:
The human race has nothing to boast about to God, but God has made you members of Christ Jesus, and by Godâs doing he has become our wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, our freedom. As scripture says, if anyone wants to boast, let him boast about the Lord.
Matthew 6:26: âLook at the birds in the sky. Are you not worth much more than they are?â
Mark 12:33: âTo love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself . . ..â
Mark 12:16, where Jesus talks about the image on the coin that I mentioned this morning. Our self-image is that we are in the image of God!
Luke 6:27 [and v. 28]: âLove your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who treat you badly.â
Colossians 1:15: âHe is the image of the unseen God, and the firstborn of all creation.â
Colossians 3:12: âYou are Godâs chosen race, his saints.â
Hebrews 10:19: âIn other words, through the blood of Jesus we have the right to enter the sanctuary.â
1 Peter 3:8â9: âFinally, agree among yourselves and be sympathetic. Love the brothers. Have compassion and be self-effacing.â
1 John 3:21 [and v. 22]:
My dear people, if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in Godâs presence, because we keep his commandments, and we live the life he wants.
And there were many more that I skipped.
Now, I selected these passages to illustrate three points. Firstâand if I had read more of them you would have noticed this even moreânotice what Jesusâ self-image is. Always, always, always, Jesus deferred to the Father. He said, always, âI am only sent by the Father. You see me, you see the Father.â Jesus did not consider his divinity a thing to be grasped, but freely poured himself into our flesh.
Second point, because Jesus did this. . . . And I skipped a lot of the passages that refer to this. For instance, one that I skipped . . . [Jeanne pauses, probably searching for passage] had to do with the . . . here: Hebrews 10:19: âIn other words, brothers, through the blood of Jesus we have the right to enter the sanctuary.â
The second point is that because Jesus did this, became human, and dwelt among us, because he only obeyed his Father, even unto death, you and I have the right to call ourselves citizens of the kingdom. We are made in the image and likeness of God. And we are greater in worth than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. We are Godâs chosen race, and we are temples of the Holy Spirit.
And the third point is that because of that, we are told to respond by loving one another, not by loving ourselves. We are told to be self-effacing. We are told to die to self, to renounce self, and to count others as better than ourselves. It does not say in Scripture to love yourself. It simply does not say that. What it says is: love God and love one another. Love your brother and your sister at least as much as you love yourself. Die to yourself, renounce yourself, be self-effacing, choose the lower place, and rejoice and be loving to those who persecute you, who hurt you, and who criticize you. Nowhere in the world will someone tell you that that is the way to improve your self-image. [Quiet laughter and murmuring.]
Now, what is community teaching about all this? Generally speakingâgenerally speakingâthe community is less psychological in its approach. Generally speaking, the community would urge someone with so-called âlow self-esteemâ to approach it as a spiritual problem, a problem in the will, and something to deal with, not something that should preoccupy us or overwhelm us.
Generally speaking, [Jeanne laughs slightly], the community would take the approach that our behavior can be altered, even when our emotions are not yet in the right place. Gentleness, sympathy, and concern are proper responses to this problem, but behavior that is not acceptable must change.
Now, one theory that the community has used effectively a lot was proposed by a man named Glasser, William Glasser. Glasser found that he could take people off the back wards of psychiatric hospitals and put them back into the mainstream of life by using this theory. Iâm sure it has problems; Iâm sure it isnât a hundred percent effective; and itâs not community teaching that you have to use Reality Therapy [the early name for Glasserâs approach]. But when youâre heading people who have these horrendous problems with self-image, it is very helpful and effective to know the principles that Glasser laid down. One thing that you have to be careful with Glasser is that I think heâs a believer, but heâs not a Christian. I think heâs kind of a naturally good Jewish person. Heâs notâI think he believes in God, because I heard him speak once, and I picked up some clues.
Okay. Now, if you had taken your psychiatric affiliation as I did in the â50s, you would have been told that all people who were in mental institutions had no responsibility whatsoever for their behavior, that they could not control the way they behaved at all. Glasser said, âThatâs not true.â In fact, one of the most shocking things for me about what he said was, âThere is no such thing as mental illness.â He said, âThere is no mental illness; there is only irresponsible behavior.â Traditional psychotherapy says, âThey have no responsibility for what they do at all.â
So, one of the things that Glasser said a therapist needed to do right away was get involved with the patient, to get personally involved with the patient, to really show them that you cared about them, to relate to them on a very human level. Whereas traditional therapy said, âbe totally, totally, not involved with this person emotionally. Donât get involved with the person at all.â
Glasser saidâor, rather, I want to talk about what traditional therapy said first. Traditional psychotherapy said that you could not help anybody with mental illness unless you probed deeply into their past, into their subconscious and their unconscious. And they went to all kinds of lengths to do this. When I was on my psych affiliation, they had just stopped using something they called insulin therapy, and the reason they stopped was because a few people had died! But they were still using a lot of things likeâyou know, they still used a lot of electric shock, because they say that the people will talk more readily. They do! They talk more readily after theyâve had a few jolts. But it doesnât cure anything.
But they would spend a lot of time probing into peopleâs dream lives and digging around in their subconscious. Glasser said, âSure, thereâs probably a lot of junk in your subconscious and your unconscious. But there isnât a heck of a lot you can do about it, either. Tell me what youâre doinâ today. I want to know how youâre living now. I want to know what your behavior is now. Tell me whatâs going on with you today. Sure, you had a rotten past. Your parents treated you badly. You were abused. You were kicked around. Everything in your life up till this point has been an absolute disaster. But, frankly, thereâs not much you can do about that.
Now, Christians sometimes use things like healing of memories and deliverance to deal with those things. We donât do much healing of memories in the People of Praise, except what comes up along with the prayer for deliverance. We donât talk much about healing of memories. There does seem to be some healing of memories that takes place within the context of a prayer for deliverance, but in general we donât use that technique.
Okay. Another thing that happens in traditional psychotherapy is what they call âtransference,â where the patient transfers everything onto the therapistâwhichâfrankly, I donât know how I can understand how they can be totally not involved and yet effect transference. And transference is always looked upon as a good in traditional psychotherapy, something that you want to happen. But it doesnât make a lot of sense to me.
WOMANâS VOICE: They transfer their needs onto [inaudible]?
JEANNE: They transfer their whole . . . letâs see, Iâve got a definition of transference here, which probably makes sense to use: âThe patient transfers what he is, or someone out of his past, onto the person of the therapist.â Now, the most clear example of that that I saw was in what they call âpsychodrama,â where they would act out a situation and have role-playing. Like, I remember I had one patient who wasâactually, he was a psychopath and he shouldnât have actually been in with the psychotics and neurotics, because he just, he just reallyâheâd steal them blind, for instance, in a poker game every week, when they got their allowances from home and stuff. But he was supposed to have [a] big heavy problem with his mother. And one of the other patients was heavily made-up all the time and, according to the teacher, resembled his mother. And so weâd act out these things where he would scream and yell and holler at âhis mother,â or somebody else would scream and holler at this woman who represented [his mother], and that was supposed to stir up all kinds of things in him and [inaudible]. I should have understood, because all the doctors really looked crazy there. They were all kind of sick. They couldnât relate in a normal way to people at all.
Okay, so thatâthey really hope that that will take place. Whereas Glasser does not believe in trying to get that effect at all.
Weâve already talked about number five [Jeanne seems to be referring to a list that the listeners also have]. Another big difference is that in traditional psychotherapy, as I said, you exercise no judgment whatsoever on a patientâs behavior. You donât make any judgments at all about right or wrong behavior. You pretend not to even know that there is a right or wrong, and you donât expect them to recognize a right or wrong. Glasser says, âNo, what you want to do is make judgments about what you consider to be irresponsible behavior.â And furthermoreâand this is the seventh pointâyou point it out. You say to them, âThat is irresponsible behavior.â And you teach them responsible behavior. Whereas the traditional psychotherapist would not teach any kind of behavior. Theyâd just accept that kind of behavior. Theyâd say, âYou canât help it, because of everything thatâs happened to you, and you canât be held responsible for it.â
Now, Iâve really gone through that very quickly. Thereâs a lot more to it, but we are running out of time.
Now, Glasser also says that everybody has two basic needs: they need to love someone, and they need to be loved. He says that after youâve pointed out irresponsible behavior, you need to teach them responsibility. For instance, he says that to feel worthwhile, you must maintain a satisfactory type of behavior. You have to behave properly, even if you donât feel like youâre being loved. And I think we would agree with that. He also says that we should not encourage transference but we should relate to the patient as yourself, not as somebody else.
Now, I believe too, however, that there is something of a demonic activity in some things that we call mental illness. Iâm not so convinced that there isnât any such thing. And I do think that sometimes there are people that weâre dealing with who will have to have some professional help. And there are Christian psychiatrists. Theyâre hard to find, but there are some.
Sometimes the way you can differentiate between what is irresponsible behavior and what is, like, a mental illness and may have some of the demonic in it, is the level of compulsiveness. If a person is absolutely compelled, then you might want to look for some demonic activity.
Now, what does all this have to do with self-image? Well, mostly I just wanted you to know some of that stuff and read some more about it if youâre heading women, because youâre going to come up against a lot of the teaching of the world when you find irresponsible behavior in your women.
Okay. What are the origins of a poor self-image?
This is going to be confusing. [Jeanne laughs lightly.] But one of the first origins of self-image is self-loveâof poor self-image, rather, is self-love. Now, you may say, âWell, itâs obvious that not everyone loves themselves.â Thatâs true; some people donât. But most of us feed ourselves three times a day. And most of us dress ourselves, and take care of ourselves. In fact, one of the ways that you can spot a more serious psychological problem is a woman who never washes her hair, and never takes care of herself physically. Then you may have a more serious problem. But sometimes even that is just an ordinary poor self-image problem. Usually, people like this, if they have a good living situation and firm, loving, helpful headship, can alter even that kind of behavior, where they just donât take care of themselves at all.
BashamâDon Bashamâhad some interesting things to say in an article a few years ago about poor self-image, which I hope I can find, âcause theyâre really good insights. He says that one of the problems with this is that we really believe the following things: that everyone should love me, and they should act like they love me all the time. This all has to do with self-love. Or we believe that we can never fail: âI must never fail.â We believe that we must always be treated fairly, that we must always behave perfectly, and that we should never endure any discomfort or pain.
One of the things that shows up, for instance, in this person who doesnât take care of herself is a problem with sloth. And we tend to think that sloth is laziness, but it isnât. Sloth is more closely described as being a dejection, âdown in the mouth,â kind of thing. Laziness will frequently accompany it. Like, âSlovenly Stellaâ had a problem with sloth, because she looked at everything, got overwhelmed by it and went back to bed. But it had more to do with a sort of a sadness of the spirit, a dejection, and a âdown in the mouthâ lookâwhich is one of the seven deadly sins, and itâs called âsloth.â Sloth is rooted in individualism. Iâm going to read you a quote from a book called The Seven Deadly Sins Today, by William Fairlie. Fairlie claims that he is not a believer. But he sure has a good handle on the seven deadly sins:
The sin of sloth is a state of dejection that gives rise to a torpor of mind and feeling and spirit, to a sluggishness, a poisoning of the will, to despair, faintheartedness and desirelessness, a lack of a real desire for anything, even for what is good. Itâs a deadly sin because it is oppressive sorrow that weighs so upon the mind that the person does not want to exercise even any virtue. It can even sorrow in the divine good instead of rejoicing in it. In pathology, sloth means a morbid inertia. It can mean the same spiritually. It is peculiarly an affliction of our time. Our popular speech today is full of phrases that suggest indifference and apathy, that amount to spiritual and emotional torpor: âhang loose,â âlay back,â âI can dig it, man,â âplay it cool,â âgo with the flow,â âdonât get uptight.â There is sloth in all of them, and they have their counterpart in more traditional phrases, such as âI couldnât care less,â âI donât give a damn,â âwhatâs that to me?â, âI mind my own business,â âlive and let live.â Nothing is worth getting very serious about except oneâs wants at that moment in oneâs own immediate environment: âIâm OKâYouâre OKâ [a popular self-help book in the â70s]. So what reason is there to worry? âIn the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair,â says Dorothy Sayers, âIt is a sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.â
The second source for a poor self-image is envy. Envy is a very close companion of a poor self-image. This person relates well and is comfortable only in situations in which she has a slight edge. She has to feel just a little bit better than the other person. Many times, people donât realize that this is how theyâre relating. This person cannot rejoice in the other personâs gifts. The other personâs gifts only make her miserable and envious. Aloud, she may say something about how worthless she is, but what she means is, âI should have the gifts, the success, the beauty, the happiness that someone else has. God has made a mistake. I should have had that.â This person frequently will demand praise, compliments, credit, and honor. On the one hand she will say how crummy she is, but on the other hand, if she has something pointed out to her that is wrong, she becomes enraged or falls apart.
Another cause of poor self-image is if there really has been a lack of respect and honor and value given to this person. And, for women, itâs true that thereâs been a lack of honor, respect, and value given to womanly qualities and womanly pursuits.
Fourth, one thing that psychologists say is that women do tend to evaluate themselves on the basis of othersâ reactions to them and treatment of them. And, as I said, this can work for us, because it gives us greater sensitivity and compassion, but it can work against us, because we tend to take into ourselves what we perceive other people thinking of us, the value that people place on us. We tend to internalize that. This is why, for instance, when my husband corrects me, my immediate reaction is, âYou are correcting me. I am a terrible person. [Jeanne continues in a glum voice.] Iâm not lovable. You donât love me.â And I express anger at being corrected. But in fact, whatâs going on there is that I feel that if Iâve done something wrong, then I must be unlovable. If you have to correct me like that, Iâm saying, then you canât think very much of me.
I remember one time Paul was trying to correct me about something, and I started to cry and feel bad, and he said, âLook, Iâm just telling you one little thing I want you to change! Iâm not saying youâre a bad person or anything about how I feel about you; Iâm just telling you Iâd like you to do this differently.â And I just never had realized that all my life, when I was corrected, I internalized it, and perceived it as some kind of a judgment on myself instead of just a small correction.
Fifth, and this is a major source of poor self-image, is pride. Weâre going to talk about pride in another talk, so Iâm not going to say much about it today.
And sixth, some women have come out of situations where they really were convinced by others that they had no worth or value. Some women. . . . [Jeanne repeats this for the listeners:] Sixth, the sixth origin. . . . For some women, they really have come out of situations where they were convinced by others that they had no worth or value.
The seventh origin of poor self-image is sin. With sin comes legitimate guilt, and guilt can lead to a poor self-image, unless we seek forgiveness and accept it.
How do you deal with a poor self-image?
First, prayer. Regular prayer. Some people, you may have to pray with them every day for a while. Sometimes you need to pray with people for deliverance.
WOMANâS VOICE: [Inaudible question.]
JEANNE: If youâre somebodyâs head, then normally you would be able to do that pretty regularly, you know, if they needed it. Not interrogating the spirits or anything, but just identifying the spirits and telling them where to go.
If the prayer for deliverance is necessary, then you may need to explore with this person their need for forgiveness. You may need to help somebody to identify the moment when she decided to rebel against authority, for instance. She might have made a conscious decision at some point in her life to rebel against authority. Perhaps she was punished unjustly, and at that moment she decided, âThatâs authority, and I donât want anything to do with it.â In fact, I remember a young woman who did have that difficulty.
Third, we need to use Scripture, all the Scriptures that I gave you and more. We need to understand that, of ourselves, we canât boast of anything and we canât demand anything. But God in his mercy sent his Son, who bought us at the price of his own life.
Some people we need to lead to repentance and to change. When she stops sinning, she will like herself a lot better. Many times, sisters who have a hard time with self-image and depression really do need to change something. They really are doing something that they need to change, and theyâll feel a lot better when they change it.
So you have prayer and deliverance; Scripture; where necessary, repentance.
Fourth, she needs good relationships with brothers and sisters. She needs lots of service and lots of opportunity to think about others instead of herself.
Fifth, she needs to be led into better thought patterns. Teach her how to take her thoughts captive, to control her thoughts. She needs to recognize what kinds of thoughts trigger depression and bad feelings. If she learns what kind of thought it is that usually sets this off, then she can stop it at the beginning. She also needs to be led into a better relationship with God. Many times the root of it is simply something that is going on between her and God, and she needs to straighten out her relationship with God. Thatâs why she feels bad about herself! The problem is that she doesnât relate to God properly.
Sixth, be very firm about depression and depressed behavior. Be very firm about her taking care of herself, physically and cosmetically. Donât allow this woman to make a lot of false statements, false humility: âIâm rotten to the core. I am a worthless person.â Just donât allow her to make those kind of âdown-buildingâ statements. First of all, they will down-build her. Secondly, those kinds of statements are very manipulative. If every time you correct this person she says, âOh, Iâm a worthless, terrible person,â then youâre not going to correct her anymore. You donât want to make anyone feel terrible and worthless! Sheâs going to back herself into a corner. Most of the time, what she really wants is for you to say something to counteract that. You wantâshe wants you to contradict that. Itâs not real humility; itâs false humility. Itâs manipulative, and donât allow yourself to be manipulative by it. Be gentle, be helpful, but be firm.
Seventh, assure her that you will be with her, that you will go through hard things with herâbut let her go through difficult things and prove to herself that she can take steps to get through the difficulty and come out in good shape.
This kind of individual . . . you can just pour yourself out, over and over. You can do everything you can think of. You can keep telling her and affirming her over and over, and paying little special attentions to this person. And it is like putting a Band-Aid on a big, fat, open wound! It gives them the impression that theyâre right, that they are special, and they do need special attention. And thatâs bad, and itâs going to backfire. Itâs not going to help.
Sometimes people can sort of get into a blackmail situation. Their head, for instance, will do a lot of little nice things for them: little notecards, a flower now and then. And Iâm not saying those arenât good things to do; theyâre very good things to do. Theyâre womanly, and we need to do them for each other. But sometimes we can get into a sort of blackmail situation: âIf I donât get a little something from you every week to affirm me, then Iâm going to go into the pits.â Donât do it, if thatâs whatâs going on. Donât be blackmailed.
Thereâs good ways of expressing our love. But sometimes, if a woman is going to get very depressed just because she doesnât get that kind of thing every day or every week, then theyâre going to feel much worse about themselves. Itâs going to backfire. Because if they donât have that kind of self-affirmation regularly, they get depressed: âYou donât love me. You donât pay enough attention to me. You donât care for me.â Women do this to their husbands. âYouâre not my friend.â Do the nice things, but be careful; donât be blackmailed. Theyâre nice, but youâre not going to cure poor self-image that way. Itâs just a Band-Aid. Help this person. . . . Mm-hmmm?
WOMANâS VOICE: [Inaudible question.]
JEANNE: Assure her that you will be with her through hard things. But donât let her avoid hard things. Just kind of stay with her, work it through.
Like, sheâs having a hard time in her womanâs group. She wants to run away. She doesnât want to go there anymore. Just let her know, âIâm with you. Iâm going to help you.â You know, she has to go home, and itâs a bad situation at home. Pray with her before she goes home, pray with her again when she comes back. But donât let her run away, you know, from hard situations, if she needs to go ahead and walk through them. And the more hard situations she walks through, the better her self-image will become.
And thatâs much more helpful than just telling her, âYouâre wrong; youâre a wonderful person. Youâre a good person. See, Iâm sending you these notes, and Iâm sending you these flowers, and Iâm doing everything you want me to do, and that means youâre a wonderful person.â Thatâs fine, but it doesnât cure anything. What they need to do is really come through hard things, so that they can see, âYes! I am made in the image and likeness of God.â Be firm. Help her to control her choices, her behavior, and her emotions. And when sheâs learned to do that, then she will know fulfillment in Christ. And thatâs what really matters.
I want to just very briefly go through some things about thought patterns. Youâve had the talk from Barbara on thought patterns, but this is just something that I think has a big connection with poor self-image.
Okay, a thought pattern that causes a problem for this person usually begins in pride. Usually, someone hurts our feelings. They mayâmost often, it is by not doing what we want them to do. We get hurt feelings because somebody doesnât do what we want them to do. Or we get hurt feelings because they donât love us. And remember what Basham says: âWe think that we always should be loved, and treated like we were loved.â The third thing is that the person does not respond as we want them to respond. And the fourth thing is that they correct us. Somebody corrects us. And so this bad thought pattern begins in pride, because we donât want any of those things to happen to us. We want everybody to do what we want them to do, to love us and behave like they love us, to respond the way we want them to respond, and âFor heavenâs sakes [sic], donât correct me!â
The second phase is that Satan plants a lie. We recognize that these things I just spoke of are happening. Our feelings are hurt because people are doing this to us, and we react by thinking, âHe (or she) is thinking badly of me.â That moves quickly on to, âHe (or she) does not love me.â Satan is beginning to plant the lie. The third step is, âHe (or she) is right; I am unlovable.â And the fourth: âGod doesnât love me either.â
So it begins in pride; Satan plants a lie; and it ends in rebellion, sin, and envy. And we have our outer reactions: âI cannot bear it!â âYou donât understand me.â âI cannot be good, and I wonât try.â This is rebellion. âThat person is rotten to think so badly of me, rotten to treat me in that way. I need to make sure that I will be treated better. I need to assert my rights.â
Or we can go in another direction and think, âIâll never amount to anything,â which leads to sloth, despair, and dejection. Or we can go into envy: âEveryone else has such an easy life.â âHer head is so much better than mine.â
The remedies are: regard acting depressed as wrongdoing. Practice gratitude.
WOMANâS VOICE: Could you repeat the first one?
JEANNE: Regard acting depressed as wrongdoing; practice gratitude; correct behavior; eliminate physical causes, such as hypoglycemia; get some help if itâs PMS; get headship; hold your thoughts captive. When you find yourself saying something negative inside yourself about yourself, say something positive. But make it something that really is the truth, like âIâm made in the image and likeness of God.â
Okay, well I have to stop now. You asked a question in the break that I didnât write down.
WOMANâS VOICE: [Inaudible.]
JEANNE: Okay. Would you remind me tomorrow that we need to talk about that?
[Recording ends here.]
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