How to Make Your Self-Critical Voice Stop Bossing You Around

It’s the unfinished things bossing you around.

What you could have done better or sooner.

The time someone walked away.

The time you did.

Words you’ve believed.

Ones you’ve repeated.

They tell the story of pain you’ve stuffed down. Tried hard to ignore.

In front of everyone else, you hold your head up. Show up at church, the Saturday outreach, the volunteer meeting. When your shame and insecurity rises, you burrow further into busy. But deep down, you struggle to believe that God’s delighted when you’re around.

Or you stick to the familiar because maybe you won’t let God down if you can do it yourself. You don’t want to admit the hold fear has in your life, so you name it something tamer. Personality. Preference. Enneagram.

As strong as you appear, your relationships feel fragile and your faith weak. You keep it light. Or keep to yourself. And no wonder—because you feel a lot smaller inside than what you’d want anyone—including God—to see.

You know your habits. Your lack of faith. The ways you won’t budge. The nudges you’ve ignored. The scars that haven’t healed. They add up to not enough, and you’ve been carrying that around for a long while.

God Isn’t Disappointed With You

The critical voice in your head is brutal, insistent, loud. But it bossed you around for long enough. Quieted your voice. Kept your door closed and your relationships shallow.

Others may have given up on you. You may have given up on yourself. But God hasn’t, and won’t.

He DOESN’T

Wait for you to mess up so He can say, “I told you so.”

Look at you last.

Compare you to the person who already achieved your dream.

Grade the things you’ve done for Him.

Find you annoying or underwhelming.

Instead of avoiding you, God meets your searching eyes with His ever-kind gaze, opens His arms wide to embrace you, whispers this promise:

‘Even if the mountains were to crumble and the hills disappear, my heart of steadfast love will never leave you, and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken,’ says Yahweh, whose love and compassion will never give up on you.
Isaiah 54:10 TPT

God’s not disappointed with you. He sees someone He loves. Thinks about constantly. Gave everything for.

He’s not walking away, holding out on you, or condemning you. He wants you. Near. Healed. Whole.

How to Stop Self-Criticizing

The way we quiet our own criticizing is to come closer. God’s voice gets louder when we nestle in close.

We don’t turn down the volume on perfectionism, pessimism, fear. We get closer to the Speaker of truth, love, and overwhelming grace.

God’s heart is always to heal. His nature to redeem. It’s the through-line connecting the smaller stories that span the breadth of history.

He says it this way in Isaiah 57:19 TPT:

‘Even though I’ve seen their ways, I will heal them. I will guide them forward and repay them with comfort, giving mourners the language of praise. I offer peace to those who are far from me, and I offer peace to those who are near, and I will heal their deepest wounds,’ says Yahweh.

The voice in your head will tell you what you can’t and shouldn’t. God’s voice tells you what’s possible because of and through Him. The voice in your head speaks confusion and condemnation. God exchanges both for peace. Clarity. Belonging. Purpose.

If That Self-Critical Voice Stopped Bossing You Around

What would your life look like if your self-critical voice fell silent? If God’s voice was nearer and clearer?

I wonder if you’d begin to believe this:

God SEES me—not last, but always

God KNOWS me—my devotion and my distraction

God HEARS me—every single word

God WELCOMES me—as I am, as I am becoming

God CHERISHES me—constantly, with reckless abandon, no matter what I do or don’t do

God SATISFIES the depth of my thirst—and overflows

Maybe we’d respond to this great, priceless love by doing all we could to make God famous. Look into as many eyes as possible. Listen to as many stories as possible. Freely share the still-growing things God’s tending in our lives with our neighbors.

The wild truth I’m learning is that what God does for me is not meant for just me. It’s meant to spill out into our interactions with our spouse and children, our friends, neighbors, classmates, co-workers. And the more we share the work God does inside us, the more it grows.

A Blessing for the One Feeling Less Than

May you know God’s heart for you today. Know that He is forever for you. Relentlessly on your side. Recklessly consumed with you.

May you find hope, healing, and peace in coming closer. Even when you don’t feel worthy and your excuses stack high.

May the way God accepts you, treasures you, pursues you, redeems you start a ripple-effect—because He loves (that’s who He is) and He loves us all.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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