Dealing With Your Inner Criticਨਮੂਨਾ

What is the difference between the voice of your inner critic and the voice of the Holy Spirit? This is a very important question as some people never pause to check.

The Holy Spirit addresses your behavior, your inner critic addresses your identity. The Holy Spirit says, ‘that way you treated Peter, that is not good.’ Your inner critic simply says, ‘you’re not good.’ The Holy Spirit convicts and your inner critic condemns. What is the difference between those? The Holy Spirit always gives you a path of repentance and repair, and after you have walked that path, you get peace which is what the gospel of Jesus offers. Have you noticed that your inner critic never really gives you anything to do? It just keeps you stuck and spinning, and it never offers peace.

Today, you can pause and listen. Is God’s spirit convicting you to repent or repair with someone? Is your inner critic attacking your identity, questioning if you are worthy of love?

Your inner critic tends to flood you with shame and humans cannot sit in shame long before we need to either repent or, more commonly, hide and blame. Dr Curt Thompson teaches that it takes 3 seconds for a message of shame to flood our body, but it takes 30 - 90 seconds for a message of love to flood us.

Today, before you get on with what is next, consider pausing long enough to relax into the flooding good news of Jesus’ love.