You're the Worst Person in the World: Why It's the Best News Ever that You Don't Have it Together, You Aren't Enough, and You Can't Fix It on Your Own

by Scarlet Hiltibidal

I thought it could make us laugh, but also help us all stop faking like we’re super-perfect-and-successful-and-the-greatest-most-together-people-ever long enough to take a big, deep breath and admit just how untogether and awful we are.

So we can all learn to rest in the goodness of Jesus instead of in the “goodness” of ourselves.

That’s the paradox of being a believer—whether it’s you, me, Katie, or anyone else, there really is no rest...

Romans 3:10: “There is no one righteous, not even one,”

Brokenness leads to rescue leads to blessing leads to pride, which leads to somehow convincing our recently broken selves that, “Everything you need is within you” and “You got this all on your own” and “You’re awesome!”

Jesus says, “You are the worst, and I am the way, but I love you and I have dreams you haven’t even thought of yet.”

Only one way tells you that, left to yourself, you really are the worst—and yet, oddly enough, that’s the only way that works.

Weirdly and wonderfully, believing the reality that we are poor in spirit leads us back to the life we were made for.

pursuing glory isn’t just a useless, temporary pursuit. It has eternal, soul-level significance.

the praise left me more miserable than I was before when I anticipated how great it would feel.

Even when I heard something complimentary about something I’d done or written from a Mrs. Yates type or a literary agent, I’d immediately crash from the high and feel disappointed that the firework feeling of the compliment or achievement fizzled out faster than when it came out of the person’s mouth.

“All sin leads to heartache.”

anything you go after with your whole heart rather than going after the Lord, be it a good grade or a good time, will disappoint and crush you.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

The blessing or happiness that belongs to the poor in spirit is because such a person is, by his admission, already moving toward participating in God’s kingdom plan, acknowledging his need for a source of salvation outside himself.”3

“For the High and Exalted One, who lives forever, whose name is holy, says this: ‘I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed” (Isa. 57:15).

“My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word… . You who tremble at his word, hear the word of the Lord: ‘Your brothers who hate and exclude you for my name’s sake have said, “Let the Lord be glorified so that we can see your joy!’” But they will be put to shame” (Isa. 66:2, 5).

Happy are those people who recognize the reality of their needy position.

The truth is this—we are poor. We are wretches, not winners. We are sinners, not successful. We can ignore it, but we can’t change it. Because whether or not we live like it, that’s what we are in our fallen state apart from God.

We don’t have to be perfect. We can’t be. And yet still God says to the rebels: You can be blessed. You can be happy. Only believe that you are what you really are and I will give you the kingdom of heaven.

I am so quick to look for happiness in things I know won’t give me lasting or true happiness because of how good I know they’ll make me feel in the moment.

temporal things are meant to point toward eternal happiness.

seeking pleasure takes a dark turn when we seek it from a place of self-worship.

Instead of being caught up in who they are, what their story is, and how they are doing, I fixate on who they think I am, what my story looks like in front of them, and how I am doing in that moment. And if this is how I treat a brand-new acquaintance, what does that say about how the rest of the relationship will go should we actually become good friends?

I want Him to take me over, because I know that it’s the poor in spirit who are happy.

It’s the ones who recognize their worstness and exalt God’s bestness who are free from believing the lies and free from the dead end of self-promotion and self-doubt and self-centeredness. We can lay down our best and find joy.

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The whole point is that Jesus, God in human flesh, came into the world and fulfilled the law. HE lived it out perfectly.

It’s not up to us to DO LIFE RIGHT. We can’t. You can’t.

I took actions in an effort to make myself comfortable, rather than taking actions to comfort others today.

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4:6)

Jesus came to replace this idea of self-esteem and self-reliance with God-reliance and submissiveness to Him.

But, in reality, that tendency leads me away from the One who puts breath in my lungs and ideas in my head and energy in my body each day.

A helpless worm in the kind arms of God. May we all be so happy.

What if, however, you aren’t poor in spirit? That would mean you don’t believe you are so sinful, morally bankrupt, and lost that only free grace can possibly save you.

We must believe in our need. The path to freedom begins with knowing our neediness.

when we come to God, we must realize our own sin and our spiritual emptiness and poverty. We must not be self-satisfied or proud in our hearts, thinking we don’t really need God. If we are, God cannot bless us.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6 nlt)

What a helpless, but healthy feeling. I was forced to acknowledge my need. I was forced to remember my true status. I didn’t choose to remember my helplessness that day. I simply ran out of options. Helplessness just happened to me.

“He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).

Ultimately, we respect each other far more if we are willing to disagree.”

Because God is good and because I kept praying to Him in secret, crying and begging on my face that He’d heal me, He kept speaking to me and saying the exact same thing.

But He didn’t give me that strength. He knew I couldn’t conquer sin and death with my own willpower.

It’s not possible to find freedom from what enslaves you if you don’t see and admit and confess that you are so broken you need to be rescued.

For so long, I was enslaved by my addiction to a feeling. For so long, I came to the Lord only half-surrendered. For so long, freedom eluded me because Romans 3:23 was a string of words rather than a worldview-shaping reality: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Jesus didn’t come for a bunch of finger-waggers. He came for the broken and the low. The people who have come to the ends of themselves and found that they need help. He came for the girls sitting outside the Starbucks wondering if they are going to live.

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

When you’re hiding a shameful secret, you always think people will be surprised if they learn what it is. They rarely are.

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.”14

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.