Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory about recurring negative self-talk that he called shadow beliefs. A shadow belief is an unconscious belief that influences our entire lives – telling us what we can and cannot do, and driving all of our behaviors. They are born in our childhood and well fed by our family, friends, and ourselves as we grow up. These are the negative beliefs hidden from our conscious view that rob us from having what Christ wants us to have in our lives: peace, contentment, hope, and life abundant.

Shadow beliefs take the form of an inner voice that responds in every situation with a loud and negative commentary. I saw this first hand once when a woman I observed spilled salad dressing all over herself in a restaurant. The volume of self-abuse that followed for the next 20 minutes was disconcerting. Repeatedly and loudly she ranted about how STUPID she is, how clumsy, how she couldn’t believe she had yet again ruined her clothes, and how she didn’t deserve to go out. She paused for a quick breath and then loudly questioned why something bad ALWAYS happens to her, and cycled back to yelling about how stupid she is…and the second verse was the same as the first.

Shadow beliefs are even reinforced in our childhood songs: “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.”

The only way out of shadow beliefs is to first recognize them, and then address them each time they pop up. That, of course, can take a long time and might require some professional help. But in the shouting back against them, take heart! The God of creation wants so much more for us. The Savior of the world died so that we might have LIFE, and life abundant. And the Holy Spirit is a vibrant and lively presence of truth in our situation. We all just need to tune our ears to God’s voice instead of the inner one that is trying to limit us.

Romans 12 The Message (MSG)

Place Your Life Before God

12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Fix your attention on God. By his power, he will change you from the inside out. External things in our culture and internal things like shadow beliefs conspire to drag you down. Don’t let them. Don’t be so well-adjusted to your shadow beliefs that you fit into them without even thinking.

Embracing what God does for you is the best way to counteract the flow of negative inner dialogue. He believes in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. Remember the cross! Christ’s action there makes us worthy of paradise. Make that your belief, and you will soon realize that nothing else matters.

Day’s End by Michelle Robertson

Saints. They can be canonized heroes of our faith, plaster statues in a cathedral, a football team in New Orleans, or the guy sitting next to you. And the guy sitting next to him.

We usually balk at the notion that every day Joes are saints, and the thought that we ourselves fall into that category is especially squirm-worthy. Comparing ourselves with the likes of the Apostle Paul, Mother Teresa, and Gabriel the Archangel is uncomfortable at best, unless you have a really, really big head. Most Protestant denominations don’t have saints, as our Catholic brothers and sisters do. Our traditions don’t include canonization, but we do have saints of the ordinary variety. You and me.

All Saints’ Day is a way of marking the ordinariness of extraordinary people of faith. Many churches observe this on the first Sunday of November. Names of those who have died in the last year are read, and a candle is lit for each. Sometimes a bell is tolled as well. It is a sacred and solemn day of remembrance and thanksgiving for the faithfulness of these folks.

The phrase saints appears in the Bible over 60 times. In Colossians 10, Paul assures us that all of us are saints:

Colossians 1:10-14 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

10 So that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins

The root of the word saint comes from the word sanctified. To be sanctified is to be “set apart for holy use.” We have been called out of the world to be the reflection of Christ to a world that doesn’t know him, but needs him desperately.

Many years ago, I traveled to Israel. Most of the holy sites are maintained by different churches: Roman Catholic, Coptic, Greek Orthodox, Franciscans, etc. As an American Methodist, I was struck by all of the plaster statues and busts of saints I knew nothing about. It was an interesting distraction from the holy site itself.

When I got home, I reflected on our Protestant understanding of saints as ordinary people, and I sadly realized that in many instances, I have been and continue to be a plaster saint. How about you? Do you ever feel that way…that if people knew what was really going on inside of you, they surely would feel differently about you?

The scriptures may affirm us as saints with the rest of the members of the household of God, but in so many ways, our usefulness as those set apart for holy use only runs skin deep. I may appear somewhat saintly on the outside, but the plaster is covering who I really am, and hiding my less-than-sanctified-self from the world.

In our ordinariness, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Then we put on a plaster cast and show a holiness to the world that doesn’t really speak to who we are inside. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and people can easily see past the mask. And so can God.

On this All Saints’ Day, let us spend a moment meditating on that. Do you mirror the image of God in everything you say, do, think, and post? Or is your sainthood just a plaster façade, hiding an inner self you don’t want others to see? Let us mark this day with self-examination, confession, repentance, and change.

As saints, we are called to work hard in every way to do the right thing, and endure in good works no matter the cost. We are instructed to grow in our knowledge of God, so keep doing your daily devotionals, people! Thank you for reading! Saints endeavor to live a life worthy of God, not just show up to church occasionally so we can check that box.

You see, the whole point of sainthood is not to be perfect, but to be redeemed, forgiven, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit to live a life that reflects our faith. And some day, when the saints go marching in, oh Lord, let us be in that number!

Morning Meditation by Colin Snider

Oh, my gosh, the TYPOS. The bane of my existence. No matter how often I proofread, edit, proofread, and edit again, I don’t think I have had one upload without a typo. I am blessed with a highly overqualified editor (Mass Media and Communication PhD, former professor, and an incredible woman of God) who gently sends me a private message when she finds them, and I fix them right away.

Unfortunately, those of you who receive these devotionals by email never get to see the corrected version. It only changes online. It drives me MAD.

Why, oh why, can’t I see them? It is as though a veil is over my eyes, and as hard as I look, they escape me.

Apparently the brain reads what the brain has intended to say. We know what we meant to say, and that is what we hear when we read it to ourselves over and over. The brain overrides the eyes, and we literally can’t “see” our mistakes. This is why we need good friends to edit us.

And that applies to so much more than writing.

Sirach 6:14-16 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

14  Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter:

    whoever finds one has found a treasure.

15  Faithful friends are beyond price;

    no amount can balance their worth.

16  Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;

    and those who fear the Lord will find them.

(Not familiar with this book? Sirach is a book found in the Catholic and Orthodox bibles. It was originally not included in the Protestant canon because there was no Hebrew version of it. However, a Hebrew version was discovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Isn’t that a lovely scripture?)

Faithful friends provide a safe place, a security we can’t find elsewhere, and are good medicine when things ail us. Good medicine fixes things, and sometimes comes in the form of gentle corrections or appropriate edits along the way. Only a trusted pal can speak truth into your life in ways that others can’t.

There was a woman in our congregation whom others were convinced had an eating disorder. She cracked her pelvis due to weak bones and over-exercise. When she tried to go out for a light run a few weeks after her injury, her best friend reached out to me and implored me to intervene. I did not know this woman well, as she was an infrequent attender. People struggling with eating disorders tend to be very private, very afraid of discovery, and practice a lot of denial.

I told the friend that she was in a much better position to confront her friend, but she refused. She continued to persist that I speak to the woman, so I finally contacted her. You can guess the rest: I expressed the concern, and she was furious and denied it. She never returned to church again.

I was in no position to “correct” her, and I knew that. The friend would have been so much better heard. That’s what a good friend does. A gentle word, softly spoken, goes a long way between friends. We can all use editing now and then.

We often can’t see our mistakes. Things we intend to be seen or heard one way can be interpreted another way. We can put a veil over our own eyes when we get caught up in something we have no business doing. A good friend helps us to see what we can’t see, and correct the “typos” of our lives.

Where is someone trying to speak truth into your situation? You need to listen. Where do you need to gently edit a friend before they go off the rails? You need to speak.

It’s hard to tell someone that they are drinking too much, eating too little, spending too much, neglecting their health, flirting with the wrong person, driving while impaired, etc. It’s harder when you’re the one who needs to HEAR those corrections. This all requires loving words, a solid relationship, and a whole lot of prayer.

Editing is a hard thing, and it takes delicacy. But faithful friends try. Faithful friends are a treasure without measure…no amount can balance what they’re worth. Open our eyes, Lord, to the truths that faithful friends deliver.

Where Two are Gathered by my faithful friend Elaine Reed

The saying “character is who you are when nobody is looking” is true. If we want and claim to be people of personal integrity, truth, honor, and righteousness, then who we are when we aren’t puffed-up and trying to impress people is the truest reflection of ourselves.

Integrity is sorely lacking among the puffed-up today. Politicians, multi-million dollar athletes, celebrities, church leaders, news personalities, local community leaders…the list is endless, and the hypocrisy great. Maybe it’s part of our human makeup. We would cringe for others to see who we are for real, so we create great facades of perfection and hide behind them.

Facebook and Instagram are wonderful vehicles for puffed-uppedness. Just scroll through everyone’s pretty, perfect pictures and you can come away with a notion that your life STINKS compared to the exotic vacations, gorgeous spouses, well-mannered children, and obedient pets that your friends post. It’s depressing…and fake.

If we showed our true colors, a lot of chaos, messiness, mistakes, Pinterest fails, love handles, and flapping thighs would dominate our feeds. Think I’m exaggerating? When is the last time you took a selfie holding your phone at waist level? NOPE, we all know to hold it as high as we can and look up with our cheesy grins, knowing we have made our double chins and saggy jawlines magically disappear.

Do you know what God says about all this?

“WHATEVER.”

Philippians 4:8 New International Version (NIV)

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Whatever is true.

Whatever is noble.

Whatever is right.

Whatever is pure.

Whatever is lovely.

Whatever is admirable.

In a world of inauthentic people, of puffed-up show-offs, of plastic facades, and fake smiles…be a whatever. Show your true colors. Be authentic. And if you’ve got parts of your soul that need fixing, fix them. Take that selfie from the waist level and let your crows feet show your joy!

When we choose true, noble and right over what just looks good, we honor God and make ourselves approachable to the other whatevers around us. And that’s how we win the world.

True Colors at the End of Our Street by Gail Driver