If I hate myself, then I demand and draw hatred from others. Then I blame them for hating me. Then I’m offended and have to forgive them for hating me. And all of this drama piles up because my own self-hatred demands that people reject me and hate me. I’m just reaping what I’ve sown.
Hate breeds hate. It’s not rational or logical, but that’s where the license to hate comes from – it’s breeding inside us.
The more I hate me, the more I am
entitled to hate other people.
And the further it goes, the more depraved
the cruelty becomes, though you don’t necessarily see it.
And there but for the grace of God would I be today. The more I hated me and the more I beat up on me, the more I felt comfortable doing the same to others. Of course, why wouldn’t I? It becomes habitual. You think along those lines. Your heart moves along those lines. It IS a stronghold and utterly demonic and it infects and defiles everything!
I think where we can see this most recently is in James Holmes. The enormity of his self-hatred finally spilled out. He felt total freedom and license to go in and massacre an entire theatre full of people with no compunction and no remorse. God alone knows the punishment Holmes likely inflicted on himself for years.
The other day I saw that when you punish yourself,
you believe you have fully paid for your evil.
Then you have the right to inflict it on others,
because you’ve paid for it yourself.
It’s playing God. If I punish myself, then I’ve paid the price and so I can keep getting worse and worse. I can say what I want to say (to anyone else) because I’ve said worse to me. I will make sure I’ve said worse to me so that I am entitled to say what I want, no matter how cold or vicious! That’s how it works. If I reject me, then I won’t hesitate to reject you. If each of my failures or stumblings evokes malevolent rage against myself, then sooner or later I will have no compassion for the suffering of anyone else. (Related Teaching Through God’s Eyes)
I am accountable to God for how much of His Love I receive – really and truly RECEIVE – for myself. If I do not love myself with His Love, then I will never love Him or anyone else.
