Do you ever feel like God is mad at you?
Maybe you know in your mind that He’s not, but the shame and guilt you carry around convince your heart otherwise. It’s easy to feel God isn’t pleased with you when you think you’re not doing enough or not performing well enough.
Dr. Barbara Lowe says that because God is an authority figure, the way we view Him can often be clouded by how other authority figures have treated us, including parents, teachers, coaches, bosses and more.
“The Lord wants to bring us up to a higher level of acceptance of ourselves and of how we’re walking out this walk,” Lowe says on “Dr. Barbara’s Whole Life Podcast.” “Yes, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. Yes, the Holy Spirit will direct us to give up things that are not good for us, so we definitely want to obey Him in those areas.”
But recently, Lowe says the Lord spoke to her and told her she was still carrying around too much guilt and self-criticism. Lowe thought she had been doing really well in that area—and she told the Holy Spirit as much. But she says He responded: “I want you to come up higher.”
That changed everything for Lowe.
“I felt this sense of [shame] lifting off me and I realized I still regulate or censor myself quite a bit. … I said, ‘Lord what if I make a mistake?’ He said, ‘If you make a mistake, I’ll tell you.'”
Listen to the podcast to hear what the Holy Spirit showed Lowe next—and how it’s changing her life completely!
