Stop Calling Parts of Yourself Evil: A Training in Self-Discipline Part Three
As we pursue self-discipline, many of us eventually run into the same wall. We begin to see that God made us for real fulfillment in Him, yet we keep getting pulled off course by our own inner leanings. We want to eat well, but we reach for what comforts us. We want to be generous, but our own wants feel urgent. We want to be patient, but anger rises faster than love. We want to live faithfully, but ambition, appetite, fear, and the need to be soothed keep pressing for control. And somewhere in that struggle, many people begin to draw the wrong conclusion. They start to believe the problem is not simply that their powers are disordered, but that those powers are evil in themselves. So instead of learning how desire, anger, ambition, and strength must be trained, redirected, and restored, they try to cut them off. But self-discipline is not a form of self-mutilation. It is not the demolition of your humanity. It is the patient restoration of it. If the last essay was about redefining the problem, this one is about correcting the mistaken solution.
There are many people who carry around a quiet hatred of themselves and mistake it for virtue.
They may never say it that way, but underneath their language is a deep suspicion that parts of them are bad all the way down. Their strong desires feel dirty. Their anger feels shameful. Their intensity feels dangerous. Their ambition feels selfish. Their imagination feels unreliable. Their need for affection feels weak. Their hunger for beauty feels foolish. Their drive feels embarrassing. So they begin to think the only way to become good is to cut away large parts of themselves. They want to remove their desire, emotion, intuition, or other parts that make them human and who God made them to be. As a result, they become smaller. Quieter. Flatter. Less alive.
But it is often a tragic mistake.
A man may think, “If I struggle with lust, then desire itself must be bad.” A woman may think, “If my anger has hurt people, then anger itself must be bad.” A gifted leader may think, “If ambition has made me proud, then I should stop wanting anything.” A sensitive person may think, “If my emotions keep getting me into trouble, then feeling deeply must be the problem.” A strong-willed child may grow into an adult who thinks, “The real issue is that there is just too much of me.”
But the Gospel is not trying to turn you into a ghost.
It is trying to make you whole.
