It is important to have self-acceptance. God made you to be YOU. Rather than disliking things about yourself—physical characteristics, personality, or abilities—it is important to embrace them. We spend too much of our lives being dissatisfied with how God created us.

A lack of self-acceptance comes from a number of things:

• Comparing ourselves to others and wishing we could have what they have.
• Buying into media hype, which portrays people in an unreal way and gives us unattainable comparisons.
• Low self-esteem in which we feel badly about ourselves. No matter what we do, we still feel inadequate.
• Shame that comes from dysfunctional families, who told us that when we make mistakes, we should feel ashamed of ourselves.
• Embarrassment about what other people do. We take on the blame and responsibility for it, even when it isn’t ours to carry.

It is true that we are all a work in progress. After you accept yourself, it is still important to work on personal growth. God wants us to strive to add godly character. We feel best about ourselves when we are learning and growing. Life requires us to learn how to improve ourselves and adjust to new circumstances. Difficult relationships test our resolve and require us to learn how to deal with them in order to keep our sanity. These two things can exist at the same time.

Accept yourself just as you are while working on your growth and giving yourself grace because you will never reach perfection.

By Karla Downing

Relationship Devotional Prayer

God,

Help me to have self-acceptance and be at peace with who you made me to be while I am working on making myself the best I can be.

Relationship Devotional Challenge

• Accept everything about yourself. Truly be “okay” with who God made you to be and who you are today.

Scripture Meditation

Psalm 139:13-18

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you” (NIV).

Romans 15:7

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (NIV).

We are to love others as ourselves. If you are to accept others, then you are to accept yourself too. After all, Christ accepts you.