“Why did you eat that? When will you ever learn? How can God love you?”
Those are some of the nagging, ugly voices in someone’s head who wrestles with Self-Condemnation. They’re stuck. Unable to let go of their mistakes and sin. Or they view themselves as an ongoing failure.
I’ve been there. Sick to my stomach with self-condemnation, and I wonder….
Did Eve live in condemnation because she listened to Satan instead of God, and ate the forbidden fruit?
- Did she justify her sin and continue to blame Satan?
- Feel bitter towards Adam who blamed her when God confronted him?
- Beat herself up whenever she thought of that fruit which was pleasing to the eye, but didn’t live up to Satan’s promise?
Or did Eve recognize God’s grace and praise His name? Aware that God could have struck her dead and taken another rib from Adam to create another, more perfect woman.
Instead, the Lord loved Eve and sought her while she was hiding in the garden. He listened to her explanation. Then—despite Eve’s guilt—God sacrificed an animal to provide skins to clothe her. And He promised that one day, her seed would bruise the head of Satan.
Did she gladly receive God’s grace and forgiveness…and forgive herself…even though she bore the harsh consequences of her actions?
I regret words and actions that happened decades ago. Shoot, I regret eating that bowl of popcorn last night. But there’s no place for loathing myself or living in self-condemnation. It’s also not good to overlook my wrong behavior with a flippant attitude that “nobody’s perfect.”
Even so, the enemy loves to wag his finger and lying tongue at us.
You’re a big, fat loser. Nobody loves you.
How many times will God forgive you?
You’ll never reach your weight goals.
The only way to stop the lies—and condemnation—is to take our every thought captive. Then squash negative thoughts and emotions with God’s Word as we rely on the Holy Spirit’s power to transform us.
Barb Ravling’s book, Renewing of the Mind Project, has been a great resource for me during this Thin Within Journey. Her book is filled with introspective questions to reveal what we think and believe about God, ourselves, and our circumstances. She also provides tips and ample scripture—God’s Truth—so we can gain victory over our negative emotions and debilitating habits.
- “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”(Romans 8:1)
- “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.” (Romans 8:35)
- “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9)
Condemnation is an insufferable place to live. So is bitterness, anger, worry, stress, and emotional eating. Barb Raveling says, “If we want to be victorious over our habits and emotions, we need to take time to renew our mind.”
After all, like Barb says, self-condemnation is “condemning someone God loves very much…YOU!”
WOW!!! I cannot tell you how timely this post was. I have been reading this blog for the past two days and have been trying to implement the thin within principles (after bouncing from every fad diet, and also some intuitive eating type approaches, for YEARS with out sucess, and this is also my 2nd time trying thin within). Yesterday I found myself “beating my self up” after being able to follow the thin within principles all day very well, and then in my mind, eating way too much after dinner and feeling so incredibly defeated, angry at myself, upset and frustrated. I opened my computer and went right to this blog this morning, and literally sobbed through this whole article, it is so much what I needed to hear, today, right now to help correct my own self-condemnation and to further convince me this IS the place where I belong and to continue to work at the thin within principles. God is SO timely, THANK YOU!
Lin, I wrote the blog and my heart goes out to you. For all my small victories with Thin Within, I hit a wall on Monday night. My youngest child, had left for his junior year in college. And I missed him. My husband was out of town, and the days are getting shorter. It was 830 p.m. Dark already. Home alone. Not hungry. I made popcorn and ate the whole bowl. Then I had a slice of leftover pizza. I KNEW I was eating because I felt emotional. And boy, I condemned myself immediately for that disobedience. In fact, the popcorn didn’t even taste good because it couldn’t satisfy my lonely heart. However, the next day, I reminded myself that it was a new day. God’s mercies are new every morning. He doesn’t condemn me so why should I condemn myself? We observe and correct. Day by day. Meal by meal. I pray you stop beating yourself up. Just the fact that you commented on this post, has touched my heart. For it reminds me that God is in control. He ministers to people I don’t even know. Consider yourself hugged. Let me know how you’re doing!!
Thank you for this post. Self-Condemning is exactly what I have been doing all day. This morning I overate big time and felt like I couldn’t stop. 4 bowls of cereal, english muffin, peanut butter, 1 apple, 5 cookies, a slice of cake, and 2 trail mix granola bars, I feel nothing but shame, guilt, hatred, pain, and hopelessness. In my self-condemnation I wanted only to hurt myself. Find the nearest knife and slice it across parts of my body. I hated what I did to myself, but through your post I know God is not done with me yet. My sinful thoughts wants to take my life and it is only through committing them under God’s truth that I will find victory. I thought I was alone with an incurable disease and no hope but this blog has helped me find the hope I have in grace, truth and the love of Christ. I can’t throw all my progress down the drain because of this incident. Please pray for me as I seek help in overcoming this enslaving sinful habit with food. I desire freedom. I desire victory. I desire to experience daily God’s love. I desire…hope. Thanks for helping my see that all those desires can be met through Christ.
Pricila, I’m so thankful the Lord led you to this post so you’d know He loves you with an everlasting love. He doesn’t want to harm you or have you harm yourself. Why is it, we can have several victories, but we get stuck in our failures? It’s like going on a vacation and only remembering the bad times instead of the good ones. I pray the Lord shows you that self condemnation is the tool of Satan. He prowls like a lion to seek, kill, and destroy God’s saints. But God’s grace and Christ’s example has paved the way to victory. May take a lifetime of walking one day at a time…and living by faith and not by sight. But you, my precious sister in Christ have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Don’t give up!! Today is a new day!
Thank you.