love and self esteem

It is the nature of language that several concepts can share one word, and that is certainly true with the word love. It has many meanings. When Paul told us that "God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7), for instance, he was talking about love that is a reaction to something. that use of the word indicates that one is extremely please with whatever it is that one is responding to. It is human to want to evoke a response. Our experience is, therefore , that someone;s pleasurable reaction to us may be a motivator. It is not, however, an energizer, because with a desire for response as motivation, the risk of not pleasing is what looms largest. That is anxiety producing. We are only truly, righteously energized by being freed of self-consciousness.

The love that we talk of when we are hearing for peace, the love that energizes and empowers another human being by giving a base of security, is the kind of love John was talking about when he said, "For God so loved the world, that he have his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). That gift of love is a gift given freely to all--unconditional physical redemption from the Fall coupled with the opportunity to seek spiritual redemption as well. No matter to what unloveable depths we allow ourselves to sink, God's loving hand is still extended to us, with the invitation to repent and come unto him. This loving incitation is withheld only in the most extreme circumstances. And even those extreme circumstances we know in advance to avoid. His love is completely reliable. Because his love is constant and dependable--because we can rely upon its always being there--we can forget ourselves and get to work. Our efforts can be directed to showing him we return his love instead of trying to get him to love us. He already loves us. It comes out of his divine heart--not out of our lovability.

The kind of love, however tender, that is a response, that is based on another's lovability, may be only admiration. Admiration brings with it the stress of self-consciousness. When we get our security from being admired, we learn that we must continue to be seen as admirable in order to feel secure. we have no control over the caprice of another's perception, so our foundation feels shaky. Our whole attention has to be directed to our self's survival. It's a barrier to peace.

I was tending my grandson recently, a favorite activity of mine, and I picked him up from preschool. He was wearing a yellow crown emblazoned with big blue letters: "I AM SPECIAL." I thought at once about the badges I had put on the coats of my youth conference attendees. I thought about our missionary who reached the point of not trying to be "special" anymore. I thought about how I would love to have relieved my precious grandson of the pressure to be special. How much better it would have been if the crown had said, "I AM SPECIAL TO MY TEACHER." He would then have known that he was valued without condition, without burden. It is such a small difference in semantics, but such a large difference in comfort. It changes how we receive the expressions of love from others, and it changes how we give expressions of love as well.

Energizing, empowering, security-giving love come out of the lover. We love not because someone is lovable but because we are able to love.

Sometimes, not separating the meanings of the word love, we work at finding people's lovable qualities and try to concentrate on them so that we can, as we believe, learn to love them in a security-giving way. When we do that, however, we are not really working at loving in the way that we have been commanded, but as admiring. The commandment is to love one another, "as I have loved you." I am confidant that we it means the way the Lord has loved all of us--not just the cheerful givers, though he wants us all to be that; not just those who obey, though he wants us all to do that. He is not commanding us to admire one another, but to be there for one another, as he is there for us--love always at the ready. The love must come out of our hearts, not out of our reaction. If we could not love on command, the Lord would not have commanded us to love.

When we love without the necessity for others to be lovable, we will see their virtues, not look for them. What's more, the list of virtues will grow, because we will be giving them the security from which they can risk proving the Lord's promise: "Be he that doeth truth cometh to the light" (John 3:21)

Or in other words, he that does obey or he that is a cheerful giver gains access to the love that has always been there--available and constant.

...If I am "loved" because I have great musical talent, for instance, how do I feel if I make a mistake in my performance? Might it lessen my desire to risk performing again, or perhaps pressure me to perform well again to feed my insatiable need for recognition?

That's what nonreactive, unconditional love does. It energizes. It empowers. It eliminates the fear of risk, the fear of doing, as when Isaiah by the Lord's mercy, was given strength to say "Here am I; send me" (Isa. 6:8) Unconditional love eliminates the insatiable need for recognition. It makes it possible to get one's strength from the Lord and to keep the commandments: "Perfect love casteth out fear:because fear hath torment"

We must not talk in terms of our own status. We must resist the temptation to mingle the wordily philosophies of men with the doctrines of the Kingdom. It will not bring us the peace for which we yearn. It will leave us either with an insatiable desire to be wonderful or nice or it will leave us exhausted from measuring what we do. We need to think instead, I am a child of God. I am love and grateful--even in my fallen state.

Status is unnecessary. The peace of the atonement of Christ can take the place of both measurement and paralyzing guilt in our lives. Striving to become fully complete children of Christ as well as children of our Father in Heaven is an easy yoke and a light burden. We have eternity; there are not clocks in the garden of eternal life. And we are so very greatly loved. Alma expressed it so beautifully: "yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things: (Alma 26:12)

We live in a society that is saturated with the wordly view. The search for self-esteem is widely used a substitute for the Savior's atonement. Teachers, programs, and friends will engage in well-intentioned flattery and its resulting encouragement of self-focus (pg 125.)

Taken from The Myth of Self-Esteem by: Ester Rasband