Loving Ourselves and Others Part 6

September 20, 2026

Letting God love us can be challenging. We may believe in God wholeheartedly and even have a deep relationship with God yet feel so disappointed in ourselves that we hesitate to enter God’s presence—much less ask for God’s help.

We are deeply accustomed to the ego’s way of thinking. The ego divides life into categories: good or bad, worthy or unworthy, successful or unsuccessful, hopeful or hopeless. It judges us every day and assigns us to one box or another. But these judgments can become a serious obstacle to receiving the love of God. 

If the unchecked ego declares that we are hopeless, deeply flawed, or helplessly weak, we may lose touch with who we genuinely are. We may forget our essential goodness and begin to believe we are unworthy of God’s presence, love, care, or healing intervention in our lives.

Our withdrawal from God may not be conscious or blatant. It may happen gradually and subtly. We find that we are skipping our time with God. We may get so busy that forget to pray. We abandon our spiritual inquiry or meditation time. We stop listening for the voice of the Divine within us. At other times, our withdrawal may be quite deliberate. We may say to ourselves, “Why spend time with God today? I have been such a spiritual failure lately. I think I will just give God a vacation from me.” But does God ever need a vacation from us?

Such thoughts are among the ego’s strategies for protecting us. The ego wants to spare us from feeling embarrassed before God and ashamed before ourselves. It has its own methods for restoring our sense of worth, and those methods make perfect sense to the ego—but not to the soul.

The ego tells us to hide until we have improved ourselves. The soul tells us to draw nearer so that we may be healed. The ego says, “Become worthy, and then return to God.” The soul says, “Return to God, and there rediscover the worth that has never left you.”

Drawing closer to God when we feel least deserving may seem counterintuitive, but it is the soul’s only true way forward. We do not go to God because we have finally made ourselves presentable. We go because we are loved and accepted. We call upon God’s name for something beyond ourselves. We do not have to clean the house of our soul before inviting God inside. God is already there, waiting with us in the very rooms we are afraid to enter.

I am reminded of the soul child within each of us—beautiful, innocent, and still capable of receiving love. This soul child of ours reflects the pure essence of who we truly are. We are not the ego or its judgments. We are not our failures, our sins, our accomplishments, our reputation, or our pedigree. We are something far deeper than anything the ego can measure, categorize, or describe. At the core of our being is the soul—created by God, bearing the Divine image, and forever cherished. When we restore our connection to that beauty within—to our essential goodness and divine nature—we can open our arms to the unconditional love of God. 

Spiritual Practice

What if, on the very day we feel least worthy of God’s love, God is inviting us to receive it most deeply?

Inquiry

Why do you think people need to be “presentable” before coming to God? 

Prayer

Dear God,

Help me know, beyond all knowing, that You receive me just as I am.

Amen