HAVE MERCY
ON YOUR
EGO
It's true so often, I could say that 100% of our stress is ego related. I can't find anything else that continually causes us to make bad decisions. It's those bad decisions that result in stress.
Still, we'd be in a lot of trouble if we didn't have an ego. It's our main source of protection.
Before going any further I want to remind you that there are different parts to us humans. We have bodies, we have minds, we have egos and we have spirits. You know what your body is, I'm sure. Although our spirits are not usually confused with our minds, we need to include that the two are different. Then we have that thing we call an ego. It's not our spirit, and it certainly doesn't sit down and figure things out, like our minds do.
Do you know that your ego never rests? It's sitting on the edge of its chair right now as you read this. The poor guy only gets any relief when you're asleep. Otherwise, it's the edge of the chair. He's always on the lookout.
As I said, without the egos governance, we probably wouldn't make it.
It's not the usual way to look at the ego, but It's really our Protection device. That's why It's on the edge of the chair. The usual way to look at ego is as a hindrance to good communication or action. "Oh, yeah. He's sure got a big ego." Ego has gotten such a bad name that all Its good qualities have been put in the back corner of some closet.
People don't look at life through the eyes of ego. They don't see the anxiety It suffers, Its frustration. He has to evaluate every little situation to make sure that we are safe, comfortable, cared for, safe.
Try to imagine some other human being taking over egos' role in your life. The sound of that person's voice, telling you what to do, is practically all you hear. They never shut up about how this or that will affect you. At least with an ego, we don't hear the constant barrage of conclusions, although we do get prodding thoughts. His desire is to keep you safe. The poor guy's a nervous wreck.
We need to put this in practical terms. If, as I said, our stress comes from decisions promoted by our ego, we need to focus on how that works in our hour-to-hour days.
You need a new refrigerator. Your old one works OK, but the little freezer on top doesn't hold enough. So, you go shopping. That big double door refer with a big bottom freezer is really attractive. It's a good thing that the space available to you won't accommodate the size. It's a good thing, because you really can't afford $850. But here's a couple of the right size. One is $250 and the other is $175. Wow! What a saving. It's true that the one for $250 has some nice features; glass instead of plastic in places, but they really look so similar. You buy the cheaper one.
Fourteen months later, two months after the warranty runs out, the thing starts running warm. All the way on high is the only place that will keep ice cream firm. And by now, one of the plastic panels has a big crack in it from when you wedged that watermelon into it.
On a day-to-day basis, you'll be experiencing low-level stress every time you interact with the refer. How many times have you mentioned that you should have gone with the one for $250? You also repeatedly remember the process you went through when deciding on the cheap one. More than once, you recall, you were goaded by ego to save that $75 bucks. He was looking out for your financial safety.
The problem with most egos is that they have no faith. It's not that they can't have faith. They just aren't taught faith, or as I say faithing, acting in faith. They are so caught up in protecting you, they go overboard sometimes and you have to pay the price for their zealous advice. You have to live with the stress caused by that d*mn refrigerator.
I've learned that whenever I'm experiencing stress, that I can stop and trace that stress back to some selfish, ego-driven decision I made that directly relates to the source of the stress. If I'm having stress about that refer, it must be from some ego-driven decision I made about the refer. In our example, it's trying to save a few bucks by buying the cheaper model.
Here's another example that I think every one of us has encountered. It's the time when you were doing some action and the thought flashed that you should be careful of some particular part. At the time you, for some reason, didn't take that warning. Next thing you know, it warning came true. That's the time when you said or thought, "I knew I was going to do that."
The faulty decision might have been made on just saving a little time. It was more convenient to ignore the little warning. After all, you would have had to get down off the ladder and adjust one of its legs so it was more stable. You could be careful and not tip over. Your sprained ankle would have a different idea about that.
Ego only wants the best for us and in extreme cases, even murder is not beyond
the realm of its suggestions.
We need to train our egos to act prudently. But that's not going to happen by sitting your ego down in a chair and yelling at it to shape up and quit causing you all that stress. How can we blame such an integral part of ourselves for doing us harm when Its first and maybe only priority is our safety? Haven't we heard that you get better results with honey than with vinegar?
We need to take mercy on our ego and help make his job less anxious. Training anything or anyone is a process of making that person's job more pleasant and efficient. That's what ALL good bosses do. The Boss's main job is making the employee's job better. How do we go about that with our ego?
Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. Maybe we need to look at our own lifestyle. There are two places to look. Grounding and self-esteem.
Self-esteem seems to be based in what others think of us. Try to follow this. All anger is based in fear. That was very new to me and at first it was just something a counselor said. It was later when I asked myself "What fear?", that my eyes were opened.
If I was angry with someone or thing, what could be the fear that was making me angry? When that jerk cut me off on the highway, I got mad, but what was I afraid of? He hadn't cut so close as to really be a threat of running me off the road. It made me mad when I saw that guy but into line five people ahead of me at the bank. But what was I afraid of?
I was a camp counselor, and I and others went for a quick walk each morning before breakfast. One morning Jim came out grumbling and very irritated, complaining about one of the kids that just wouldn't behave. I asked him, "What are you afraid of?" He was afraid of the same thing as when that jerk cut me off, and the other jerk butted in line.
The only thing that causes us to be afraid is something or someone who treats un in such a way that we feel less of a person, smaller. We know in our hearts that ALL people are equal. No one person has more worth than any other person. How dare that person treat me like I was less important or of less worth then he?
All this will boil down to, "approval of others." We spend a great deal of our time and energy "proving" that we're as good as other people. We're afraid we won't be liked unless we use a certain brand of deodorant, hair style or shoes. Being accepted is drummed into us form all directions. These beliefs make it almost impossible for ego to act in a proper manner.
In our hearts we know that no other human being has a greater worth than we do. We also know, when we give it some thought, that no one can take away any of our worth. Even if you get run over by a train, it doesn't make you less of a person. We all have the same basic human worth, and nothing anyone can do will change that, but God. When I was a kid we used to say, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I grew up knowing that, but wasn't able to put it into practice until I found God.
Tied to approval of others is grounding. It's because of a lack of grounding that we let ego run amok. We can't teach ego to have faith if we don't know what faith is. We are to afraid to take any risk.
There are many different parts of our lives, some of which are rooted in faith so well that we don't give fear a chance to even show its face. Some people never worry about money. It's not that they have a lot of money, They aren't the richest ones around, but they are dong OK. They have what is needed to stay warm, fed and housed. If asked, they'd tell you they have more than they really need. But don't ask them to get up in front of a bunch of people and talk about something that they profess to be important.
No matter which area of one's life they feel fearful about, proper grounding will take care of that fear. Grounding covers everything. Just like fear causes anger, all types, grounding covers all types of fear. You see where this if going, huh?
The trouble is that grounding isn't as easy as we want it to be. That's the reason why so many people are not grounded. They talk a good game, but strike out on the first inning. The grounding that covers everything is God, of course. But that's the rub.
Those talkers don't show us that they are really grounded when decision time comes. They cover their act just like those people they themselves will call ungrounded. The church is full of people who don't have enough belief or grounding in God to live a life without fear; fear of death being the utmost. Take a look at the so-called Christians who spend their last five years fighting off death, clinging to life through extreme physical misery; cancer, chemo, double bypass heart surgery. One would think that death was the ultimate victory for a Christian. I know an older Believer who says that "The joy of old age is the approach of death."
There's no way to get around your ego. Your ego knows what you are thinking. The only thing we can do is order our lives so that ego can sit back in the chair and enjoy the ride.
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I only know one way to do that. Confirm God's reality to the point of being able to prove to someone else that God is real. Knowing God is real is the foundation of a peaceful mind.
The Believer's Walk is directly dependent on the knowledge of God's reality. We are to eventually depend on God 100% of the time. We will have NO ego at that time. The greater our knowledge of God, the less ego will have to say to us that will result in stress. That's because all our decisions will NOT be our own. They will all be based in something God has said. That takes ego out of everything.
Of course, that doesn't happen over night. As long as we are alive, we will be trusting more and more on God. This is necessary, because of the difficulty in Walking the way God tells us in the Bible.
God tells us several things that we are to do that shake our confidence and get our ego working overtime. The Believer's Walk is a very hard one. A change of lifestyle. I'll only mention the three tithes, which when added up will come to 25 percent of what comes in. How's that for hard? How can a person making only forty thousand dollars a year "give away" ten thousand?" Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of food. Ego will come up with a good reason not to tithe for every thousand dollars in the ten.
A person might have a total of thirty hours a week when not on the job. Let's say four hours on work nights and eight hours over the weekend. How many people are willing to spend 7 out of that 28 hours of "free" time studying and publishing their work? That's part of the Walk.
Somehow we have to convince our ego that everything will be OK, if we do what God says, in spite of the things that look like they will bring us down. We have to give our ego some mercy and relief from its watchfulness.
Don't yell at your ego. Tell It that God is going to take care of things. After God does take care of things a few times, ego will give up and let you alone. Less stress will show up.
But if it does show up, you'll know how to deal with it. Just look at the context in which the stress came up. Follow that context back until you find that ego-driven decision that you made. Show that to your ego by way of reinforcement. Don't yell, be nice.
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