Dealing With Your Inner CriticSample

Yesterday we did a sort of Rorschach test with Peter’s denial of Jesus. Imagine your last conversation with Jesus is letting him down! This encounter above is the next recorded conversation we have between Jesus and Peter and it is no coincidence that just as Peter denied Jesus three times, so Jesus asks Peter about love three times. Jesus wasn’t asking because he wasn’t sure or didn’t believe Peter, he was wiping away the denials and the shame.

When we let God down, we get love in return. What happens to most of us, however, is that when we let God down, our inner critic speaks louder than the voice of God. We sit in the shame and condemnation of our inner critic than we do in the forgiveness and goodness of God.

This is why it is vital to learn to relax into God’s presence because we are so often too present to our self and not present enough to God. These seven days have been all about noticing, wrangling and quietening our inner critic so that we can open our souls more to God’s good news. You might pause and open back to 1 John 3:19 and 20 to relax into God’s presence and goodness.

God is love. Even when we let God down, God is love. God does not become the judge and accuser based on our behavior. God is love all the way to the bone.

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