Are We Better Robbers than Samaritans?

By Audrey Stallsmith

I recently fell into the unpleasant habit of waking up in the middle of the night just to worry. There were plenty of things to fret about, after all. 

My elderly father’s poor balance, my own lack of planning for old age, kittens getting sick, the vegetable garden not doing well this year, the flower seedlings I never got around to setting out still languishing in their containers in August. . .   

It’s too easy, however, for me to slip from just worrying into berating myself for not handling things better. I often tell myself that, if I had made a career out of something practical—instead of a mishmash of freelance writing and part-time jobs—I would have less worries by now. Also, I remind myself that someone who has written as many garden articles as I have should do better at the actual gardening!

The middle of the night obviously isn’t the time for self-recriminations, because I’m not wholly rational in the dark hours. In the light of day, I can remind myself that a practical career may not have turned out any better for me than a writing one. Companies close abruptly all the time, after all, often leaving employees who have worked there for years bereft. And people who do opt for what makes money often feel cheated because they weren’t able to do what they loved instead.

And this actually was my first solo try at vegetable gardening, all my prior experience having been in flower and herb gardening instead. So I can’t expect to be brilliant from the beginning. 

Not to mention that the writing—plus cooking for my father—leaves me little time for either type of gardening anymore. And is it really my responsibility to take care of every feral kitten who shows up on our doorstep? But these things don’t occur to me when I am busy beating myself up in the middle of the night.

A book I recently read reminded me that psychologists call this self hate, asserting that it is widespread and the most common cause of depression. I can testify that it certainly doesn’t make me feel perky! And, although we religious types might think this constant criticism of ourselves is Christian, it often is anything but.

We would never berate anyone else that severely, after all. We usually are compassionate enough to find excuses for our friends and relatives. And, even if we have to confront them about something, we choose our words more carefully than we do the ones we fling at ourselves, to avoid hurting their feelings. We apparently have no such qualms about our own feelings!

That can only mean that we are egotistical enough to expect more from ourselves than we do from other people—and to feel shame and anger when we don’t prove to be superior after all. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the Bible tells us. That implies that we must show compassion to both our neighbors and ourselves. 

Unfortunately, some of us seem to play the club-wielding robbers in the Samaritan story more often than we do the the compassionate helper, even if it is only ourselves whom we are beating up. In the process, we tend to take away (steal) all the good things we actually have accomplished—as if they never had happened.

The “only ourselves” in my previous paragraph exposes the error in our thinking. We aren’t “only” anything but children of the King, and we need to extend to ourselves the same compassion a loving Father expects us to extend to His other children.

Yes, we do need to be willing to admit when we have sinned and we do need to repent of those sins. But most of the mistakes we make aren’t sins, just the kinds of errors common to everyone. So we need to learn to accept and forgive the fact that we are human, just like everybody else! Also, when we are feeling down, we need to remind ourselves—just as a friend would—of the good we have done to prevent ourselves from sinking into the actual sin of despair.

If we know how hard we are trying, then God knows it too. Once I’d reminded myself of that, I began to sleep better, though I doubt the accusing voice is done with me yet. Although I seem to be able to silence it temporarily, it always comes sneaking back when my defenses are down. 

That’s why I need to be able to recognize it for what it is, the voice of pride that attempts to ape humility. Truly humble people, as somebody once said, don’t think about themselves at all. Like trusting children, they are holding God’s hand and have their gazes turned outward and upward to Him rather than inward and downward to themselves.