Residual Self-Image – Perception Equals Reality

February 16, 2006

I few years back, a church elder was holding a teaching session in which he used a DVD of the movie The Matrix (1999). In the movie, Neo (Keanu Reeves) referred to his "residual self-image". Since that evening, I have thought many times about that term and its truth in my own life — my own unshakable residual self-image.

Throughout my life I have been plagued by a lingering perception that has controlled much of my thoughts and actions. However, that it has had, indeed still has, that controlling influence in my life, it was and is much more than perception — it has been my reality.

Having received negative messages, with little or no guidance and off-setting positive messages, from my parents before birth and into my adult years, from my brother in my formative and adult years, and from so many others my age and other adult authorities along the way, there is no shaking my feeling of worthlessness.

I have been told of my eternal worth to God, and deep in my soul I know that to be true, but even that does not console when I don't feel His presence and comfort in every day life. Isaiah 61:1-3 tells us that God binds up the brokenhearted that He may be glorified. I await that freedom.

I have only briefly tasted the effects of Christians who did not hold me down. Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:18-19 that, "whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven." However, I learned that with those same Christians their love and support was only temporary. In time I was no longer willing to perform in order to feel accepted.

I don't know if I will ever be free from times of dark, depressing and hopeless despair, but it seems to me that if I am to be free this side of Heaven, it will only come when other Christians stop holding me down.