The esteem you need E-Book

Esther Samboe

• Herausgeber: Mijnbestseller.nl
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 146

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'How to get rid of low self-esteem' 'How to be confident in your own skin' 'How to get self-confidence' 'How to master self-love.' Just a few fictive titles of books you could have read so that you will get the picture. It looks like everyone is in need of self-esteem or is looking for self-confidence. It even seems like a pandemic. Many people are stressed out and even burned out for a prolonged period of time. If you are also looking for self-esteem and self-confidence, look no further. This book will help to give you a different perspective on how to get this, namely through the love Jesus Christ has for you. This book will take you out of your comfort zone and to the esteem you need!

Leseprobe

The esteem you need

A Love gift

Esther Samboe

colophon

© 2022 Esther Samboe

Publisher: Esther Samboe

Cover design: Esther Samboe

Date of publication: 8 May 2022

First print: 8 May 2022

ISBN: 9789403667607

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or author.

Definitions of Greek and Hebrew words are taken from Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong.

Definitions of words are taken from Google dictionary online.

Table of Content

Introduction

Chapter 1 The why behind it

Chapter 2 Your whole being

Chapter 3 Renew your view

Chapter 4 The deception uncovered

Chapter 5 Let’s change

Chapter 6 Another revelation about insecurity

Chapter 7 The mighty persons

Chapter 8 All those effects

Chapter 9 Confessions

Introduction

'How to get rid of low self-esteem' 'How to be confident in your own skin' 'How to get self-confidence' 'How to master self-love.' Just a few fictive titles of books I've read, so you will get the picture. I needed self-confidence because I had none. To be clear: zero, nada, nothing. That was my self-confidence. Also, my self-esteem was nowhere to be found. I thought awful things about myself. I saw myself as an ugly, monstrous, stupid, and dumb human being. I always said silly things, doubted myself and continuously compared myself with others. Other people were in my mind better than me; they were intelligent, beautiful, clever, fast forward, pleasant and friendly. 

I was always busy trying to behave myself in the best way so that people would like me. Because of this, I was always tired. It takes a lot of effort to try to look your best when you are messed up to the core. People-pleasing was one of my best attributes. For instance, I have done so many things in my life without putting my heart into it. I didn't want to do it but did it for the sake of other people for them to like me. I have attended many parties I didn't want to go to, drink a lot of coffees with persons I didn't actually like in my heart nor to have a friendship with. I have worked so many overtime hours because I couldn't say no at my job. I was loaded, not with money, but with a weight that just seemed to get bigger and bigger. It was almost unbearable. But I did anyway. Because I thought I needed to be strong, I needed to be a good person; I needed to be great. I didn't want anybody to think wrong or bad about me. I wanted to be a superhuman who could handle all things in life and rise above them. Of course, this is almost impossible. But by trying to act like a superhuman for others, I made it even worse. I was getting more messed up by the minute, without realizing it.  

Unfortunately, I am not the only one with this problem. I believe it is a pandemic. It looks like everyone is in need of self-esteem or is looking for self-confidence. Many people are stressed out and even burned out for a prolonged period of time. When you look on the Internet for a self-help book on confidence, the titles are endless. Besides these books, the number of workshops, coaching, and training on getting rid of low self-esteem are enormous. 

Even in the church, this topic is hot. When I received salvation from Jesus Christ and chose to follow Him, I experienced a lot of love like never before. This love was incredible! It changed me for the better. But still, I wasn't confident. My self-esteem was six feet under. I loved God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God, but I didn't love myself. I kept comparing myself with others and saw myself as a gigantic monster. I always tried to make and be the best for everyone and everybody except to myself.  

In church, I received a lot of training on this subject. Besides training, I went to a lot of workshops and even received one on one help. It would help me a little bit, and I felt better about myself for a few weeks. But, then, when something happened at work, such as having a job evaluation conversation or making a mistake at work. Or when I tried to say no to friends, and they got a bit angry with me, and out of fear, I would say yes again, my self-confidence got a slap. It felt like I fell out a window down from a building ten departments high. Then I would pick myself up once again, get back up, and try. And try, and try, and try. I'd tried to be the best version of myself for others; I even tried to incorporate what I learned from the training of the church I went to. But it all didn't help. I was stuck in a big large without an end circle. Does this sound familiar to you? 

Well, if so, I got news for you. Not just some news or news that would be nice. No! I have THE good news for you! I will serve you the gospel throughout this book. So you can get rid of this self-confidence and self-esteem search once and for all. I can boldly proclaim this because I have gotten rid of this misleading error. Yes, I call self-esteem and self-confidence misleading errors; you have read it correctly. For many people, this might sound strange; after all, what is wrong with self-esteem and self-confidence. However, I have learned that when I found freedom in Christ, I didn't need self-esteem and self-confidence anymore. I will explain why throughout this book. But the core reason for having security in life is Jesus. 

Maybe my story is not your story, and is yours more distressing than mine. Or your story is less upsetting; either way, we all are human beings. Looking for stability and confidence in life. I found this all in the love of Christ, or better said, in the love that Jesus has for me. No matter what I do in life, whatever mistakes I make, He still loves me. The best thing that I have found out is that you can always be yourself with Christ. I don't have to be a superhuman for Him because He is the Super Person I rely on. Because of this, I learned how to deal with myself and other people. So I could say farewell to people-pleasing and the search for self-esteem and self-confidence. If you want this as well and want to learn how and why this book is for you. Let me help you and share my experience and start this journey together throughout this book!  

Chapter 1 The why behind it

Self-confidence and self-esteem. As I previously wrote in the introduction, I see them both as errors. Why am I saying this? Maybe you wonder if I am in my right mind or losing it altogether. Please, let me explain it to you! First, let us find out the meaning of self-confidence and self-esteem. 

The dictionary says as follow:

Self-confidence: confidence in oneself and in one's powers and abilities. Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and abilities. It means you accept and trust yourself and have a sense of control in your life. You know your strengths and weakness well, and have a positive view of yourself. 

Self-esteem: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person's overall subjective sense of personal worth or value. In other words, self-esteem may be defined as how much you appreciate and like yourself regardless of the circumstances.

Self-confidence and self-esteem are almost similar. However, only self-esteem has the focus on your personal worth and value. Self-confidence is the confidence you have in your own ability and skills. 

When you read all of this, it looks like there is nothing wrong with it, don't you think? At least I felt this way. What is wrong with finding out your worth? Or what is wrong with a little bit of confidence. Most of the churches I have visited even proclaim that it is good to have self-confidence. They give you courses on how to love yourself more and more. Let me introduce to you a better way: Christ confidence, Christ esteem instead of self-confidence and self-esteem. I wished I had learned this earlier in life, so I wouldn't have to go through all my hardships.

For years I have worked for a deployment agency. I have seen many different organizations as I went from project to project to be deployed. At every organization I went to, I always met people who were so worn out they needed to stay at home for months. They were overstrained. I am not talking about a few people; what I am talking about is a lot of people. A lot! If it were not my direct colleagues, it would be colleagues of other departments within the organization. The amount was huge. Most of the time when I talked to these people, I always got the same response: the workload was too heavy, they didn't have enough confidence to say no, they were in search of themselves and 'lost' themselves on the way (to what way I don't know, I can't answer that!), they had very low self-esteem and didn't know what to do with it, life got in the way of them. The outcome that followed was burnout, depression, stress. But also physical aches, which the doctor couldn't explain where it was coming from. Because of this, they got therapy. It was terrifying and sad to hear all those stories. 

I found out through my job that many people struggled with low or no self-confidence and self-esteem. I discovered that I wasn't the only one having these struggles! I received salvation and found Christ more than a decade ago during this work period. I got water baptized and was baptized with the Holy Spirit in the same week. I was back then an evangelical Christian who could speak in tongues and went to church every Sunday. I started to tell my co-workers about the love of Christ; only in that I change and make a difference in my life. Because after salvation, I experienced the love of Christ. But, still, my life was the same as before. I acted and thought the same. My manner of living wasn't different but alike and identical to colleagues at my workplace. I needed self-esteem and confidence as much as them.

I couldn't make a difference in my life; I struggled and could not have that complete change in my mind and life. I was still putting myself down, thinking that other people were better than me. During work, I wouldn't tell people my opinion; I was too scared to say something and say no to certain things. Too afraid to speak up, I was worried people would find out I was stupid and not good enough as I was thinking about myself in this way. Why was I still like this? Why was I the same troublesome person, even with Christ in my life? Ok, I had a few changes in my life, for which I was and am very grateful. For instance, I was set free of my lousy smoking habit in one afternoon. Before I was with Christ, I smoked a lot, from morning to evening. Then one day, when I got home from work, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and asked me in a loving and non-judgmental way if it wasn't better for me and my body to quit smoking. I answered yes, but that I needed help from the Holy Spirit. And He did.

In an instance, I quit smoking; I didn't have the longing for it anymore; I even found it a dirty habit. I forgot that I used to smoke; it looked like the habit of smoking was erased from my memory by the Holy Spirit. Which was! In one afternoon, I got freed from smoking, thanks to Jesus! Next was that my menstruation was very off track. I got my period once in a half year instead of every month. According to the doctor, this had to do with my hormones. They were not in balance. The moment I chose to live with Christ and received salvation, from then my period was regular, and my hormones were in balance again. The extraordinary thing was that I didn't pray for it, nor did anybody pray for me. When I accepted Christ in my life, at the same time, my body received healing. Besides this, I was in severe debt with my finances. Jesus got me out of it; you can read more of this in my other book, 'a financial devotional.' So, once again, don't get me wrong, as I wrote before, I was and, of course, still am very grateful for these miraculous testimonies that happened to me. But my self-confidence and self-esteem were nowhere to be found. And thank You, Jesus, I have never discovered this self-confidence and self-esteem. I now have something better, which is Christ's esteem and confidence. 

Why? 

Self-esteem and self-confidence require 'self.' When you search for it and want it very badly, you need to work hard on yourself. Because you need to be confident in yourself, it depends on you. Everyone has good and bad days. So when you have your bad day, your confidence is lacking because you are responsible for it. Self-confidence relies on all the good qualities you have. So your abilities and good things will be as a one-day good and up, another day bad and down, one day good and up, on and on it goes. The key is to find this confidence in Christ. The One Person who stays the same, forever. I will repeat that for you; He remains the same forever! Jesus doesn't have good or bad days. He is not one day up and one day down. So you don't have to doubt if He is able and good enough. Because He is good! 

There is no place in the Bible where I can read that you need to search for self-esteem or self-confidence. As a matter of fact, the Bible is telling us to don't to rely on ourselves because the heart is as deceitful above all things:

Jeremiah 17:9 KJV

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

I am not saying that you or I are wicked. It is just that we don't need to rely on our own confidence and doings. 

Or Proverbs 3:5 KJV:

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

But what about this following scripture, you might think:

Matthew 22: 37-39 KJV:

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

There you have it. This scripture says you need to love yourself, as many people tell me when I speak about the errors of self-esteem or self-confidence. 

Still, I am telling you there is a difference between loving your neighbor as yourself and self-esteem or self-confidence. With self-esteem and self-confidence, you focus on yourself and your abilities and skills. It is all about self and never about love for another person. Let me explain this further by breaking up this scripture of Matthew 22: 37-39 in detail with other verses out of the Bible.

First of all, this scripture starts with you loving God. But how do you love God if you don't love yourself? I had a lot of trouble with this. Then I came across the scripture in 1 John 4:10 NIV, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." I needed to learn that God loved me and needed to receive this love to start loving Him. To get this love from Him, I need to know Him with all I have and not know Him as an acquaintance. How do you get to know Him? Yes, you can go to church, pray, and listen to preachings. But with starting reading the Bible, you get to really know Him. The Bible is all about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. You will learn His loving nature and character. You understand that He has only good thoughts about you and not of evil. He wants to bless you and give you a profound future. (Jeremiah 29:11) I will explain this further in chapter 3. When you get to know Him, you can love Him because He loves you first. You can start to love God, yourself, and your neighbor. Because God is love, what we can read in 1 John 4:16 NIV, "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." After getting to know Him more and more, I started to receive this love He had for me, and still has, of course. This receiving came foremost by reading the Bible. Because of reading the Bible and receiving, I started to love God with all of my heart. 

Next is that the scripture of Matthew 22: 37-39 says that the love of your neighbor is the same as your self-love. Let's read verse 39 of Matthew chapter 22 KJV once again, "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."