This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew 5:38-48 and its a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount we started last weekend. Matthew's structure for Jesus' precepts certainly hits hard as a Christian since he complies them all in one sermon making them repeatedly hit us one after another. This passage tells us to "Turn the other cheek", love more than the tax collectors and pagans, and to "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect" - these phrases (and paraphrases) are gargantuan challenges.
In bible study this week the ladies and I were discussing what this passage means and we all concluded that it is a call to be humble, truly and radically humble.
With this in mind I considered what it means to be humble and confident; or I would say, truly confident.
I read this article last week from Christian Today that considered the standards of beauty in the world today and it explained that feminine beauty is used today to "one up" other women in order to succeed socially or in our careers. One way women use their beauty is to compare themselves to other women and attempt to look prettier than them in order to get a leg up in society. Ingrained in our fallen nature we all compare ourselves to others and we all aim to be at the top. I know personally I aim to be perfect, to be the best, but that is not perfection as my heavenly father is perfect. On the contrary Christ is calling us to a perfection which is true humility, not to be better than everyone else but to love everyone else more than ourselves. When I was falling into an anorexic life style my aim was to be THE skinniest, prettiest, and on... and to me that was perfection. There was a hierarchy of beauty in society and i wanted to be at the top like many other women do. We all desire to be desired and to be successful and beauty helps us get the attention that we want be it friends, men, or a job we want but when our confidence is shattered because another woman gets what we want or an imitation of what we want we've got some problems on our hands. We can tell that this perfection is not what God calls us to because if it were so not only would people avoid falling into disorders like anorexia and no longer seek to trump others in their beauty but also Jesus wouldn't preach turn the other cheek. Jesus prefaces "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect" with first calling us to defy the selfishness society leads us in - to think of ourselves first, get vengeance, love those who are easy to love and therefore the perfection he must be calling us to is ultimately humility.
As i contemplated my experience with confidence these past couple months I realized that I had ingrained in my mind, whether i realized it or not, that i wasn't perfect enough for people to be drawn to me and to desire to be my friend when in reality my friends tell me all the time how much the love spending time with me and further more i have a boyfriend who absolutely adores me and i knew those as truths. Clearly i was being selfish and not aiming for perfect in imitation of my heavenly father because I know as simply as my ABCs that God loves me and desires for me to be here and to be in relationship with those around me. He also calls me to love others and to be humble and put others first. it helped me realize that i must understand that those around me do love me and those who don't know me at all or well can be drawn to me and i am good enough to be their friends as well because i am beautiful and i am loved and i do love.
Love and the truth truly do set us free because once i conquered the lie that i wasn't good enough i began to feel so set free. Once i realize the capacity of others to love and be loved i can't help but be confident. When i set my mind straight contemplating the unconditional love that God has for me and the wisdom he has granted me to know myself more and more the closer i grow toward him I realize i am good and i am desired. When i realize how loved i am by my family, friends, and incredible boyfriend i realize yet again that i am good and desired. When i realize that i am called to put myself aside and love my heavenly father and these incredible people around me before myself i realize that because i am good and desired i have the freedom to love and be loved and to be truly confident.We don't have to be perfect in this worlds eyes. We aren't called to be the top to the list, but we are called to be at the bottom - that is where holy perfection lies and where we can be truly and peacefully confident.
