This part of the series is the most deeply personal. I trust you won’t judge me too harshly. There is no one harder on me… than me.

I have called myself more names and scolded myself more deeply and more often than any boss—or even enemy—has ever dreamed. You know how it goes. You look in the mirror, shake your head, and say out loud, “What an idiot. What did you just do?”

A little over twenty years ago, I found myself in the middle of a transitional assignment with a congregation that had split in two. One half went across town to follow the minister who had just left to start a new church. The other half stayed behind to try to put the pieces together, lick their wounds, and—hopefully—survive.

Friendships were broken. Families were divided. Accusations flew both ways.

I arrived in a weakened state myself. My previous pastorate had been difficult, to say the least. And yet, here I was—a servant of my Father—ready to please Him with all I had.

After a particularly difficult lunch meeting one day, I was driving out of town toward my office at the church. As I drove, I caught myself pounding on the steering wheel, calling myself every name in the book. Angry because I wasn’t intelligent enough. Savvy enough. Educated enough. Angry because I wasn’t enough. I always felt like the dumbest guy in the room.

I pulled up to the stoplight at the bypass. While sitting there, I turned on the radio—just noise to fill the silence. It was a local oldies station mixed with community news. At that exact moment, Billy Joel’s song Just the Way You Are was playing. The line being sung was this:

“I couldn’t love you any better,

I love you just the way you are.”

I reached over, turned the radio off, and wept.

That moment began a journey of grace for me.

I felt waves of God’s love wash over me. It was as if He were saying, “I knew who you were when I called you. I know all your faults and warts—I know it all. But I also know your strengths. And I know what you and I can do together. So stop the madness, and trust Me to do My work through you.”

It dawned on me then: if I am a child of God, called according to His purpose, then the conversations I was having with myself were no different than if I were having them with someone else.

I was speaking against a child of God.

I was intensely angry with one of His servants.

My attitude toward me was not aligned with His view.

Here I was, berating one of His children… me.

Jesus said:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

— Matthew 22:37–40

This doesn’t mean we move through life without correction. Most of us need chastisement from time to time. What it does mean is that we learn to see ourselves through the same lens God uses.

So what would I tell my younger self?

Your Heavenly Father loves you with an everlasting love.

He knows all your imperfections and struggles—and still loves you.

He has called you.

And you are His.

Period.