Day 177 - A Healthy Sense of Self
📖Daily Reading
Ezekiel 23-43
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Ezekiel 23 The Adultery of Two Sisters
23: 1-4
This message come to me from the Lord: “Sone of man, once there were two sisters who were daughters of the same mother, They became prostitutes in Egypt. Even as young girls, they allowed men to fondle their breasts. The older girl was named Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah. I married them, and they bore me sons and daughters. I am speaking of Samaria and Jerusalem, for Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
23: 49
You will be fully repaid for all your prostitution - your worship of idols. Yes, you will suffer the full penalty. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.”
I covered a lot of reading today in Ezekiel. I think chapter 23 is a good example of this section of the book. The messages/chapters are all about the coming destruction of the various cities. Each one highlighting the ways in which the collective behavior of the people and their leaders have gotten them off track. In chapter 23 we are getting a clue as to how to read the chapters, imagining the cities as people or ourselves.
I almost called today’s reflection co-dependency. This is the way my particular unhealthy sense of self seeks to find value, validation, worthiness. But I know this is not how everyone fulfills their sense of self. Going back to the book of proverbs we learned there are a lot of different ways people try to satisfy this. We are told over an over again that a healthy sense of self can only be satisfied through God and yet most of us try every other way first before we finally give up and raise the white flag.
In christianese we often say ‘I know who I am because of whose I am’, this is a healthy sense of self. Even those of us that really try hard to live in this truth, it is hard to stay in it! These people in Ezekiel’s day are no different. A lot of them may even be talking a good game, but their lives are speaking a totally different language. They are trying to get their sense of self, met through the world. Through things like; power, money, accolades, acquisition, praise, fun, etc..
Finding a sense of self outside of yourself and outside or apart from your creator just doesn’t end well - ever. And yet, every human has to fight this battle on their own. Our ‘flesh’ and ego is sending us messages that this is what we need to do. If our spirit is awake and active it will feel conflicting and confusing. It takes time for some of us to walk across this ‘bridge’ from knowing to KNOWING. We hear it we think we understand it, but we don’t fully ‘trust’ it and there for don’t aren't really able to live from this place of KNOWING.
When I really practice living from a place of knowing I am worthy not because of anything I have done or am, but because of who created me. My existence is evidence that I matter. When I feel this, I want to take care of myself, I want to have healthy boundaries, I want to love others well. I wan to see that others are valuable and matter simply because they exist as well. Even if they aren’t acting in a way that I like or that is feeding my ego and my sense of pride. Human have a deserving and earning relationship with each other without God.
Some of us like to misuse God to deserve or earn love from each other or with ourselves. These chapters in Ezekiel, from the watchman of Jerusalem is to get things in the right order before it is too late. We heard the message from yesterday and it is repeated again in Chapter 33 again in vs. 18 “For again I say, when righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and turn to evil, they will die. But if wicked people turn from their wickedness and do what is just and right, they will live. O people of Israel, you are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right.’ But I judge each of you according to your deeds” Our deeds are a reflection of our heart which is a reflection of a healthy sense of self.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
How is your sense of self? Is it healthy?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Ezekiel 44-48
Coaching Opportunity
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