Any part of ourselves that we try to hide or deny because it seems socially unacceptable is our shadow self.
It is insufficient to primarily focus our sinful shadow on sexuality and body issues. Our primary and deeper shadow is our weakness.
Our success-driven culture looks down on failure, powerlessness, weakness, simplicity, and any form of poverty. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead.
We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world.
Instead of just bearing our weaknesses, failures, and contradictions, it is necessary to be at peace with them.
The brilliance of the Gospel is that it incorporates failure into a different definition of spiritual success when Jesus declared that prostitutes and tax collectors are getting into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and religious elders.
God hid something beautiful quite well: the proud will never recognize it, and the humble will fall into it every day—not even realizing it is necessary for holiness.
2 Corinthians 12:10 "That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
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