On a scale of 1 to 10, when asked, "How do you feel about yourself?" People answered an average of 2.7! What is really sad in this hectic non-affirming world in which we live is that the score dropped from a "6" when our parents' generation answered the question 28 years earlier. This squares with my experience - there are so many insecure people out there.

No wonder "Survivor" is so popular! People are stuck in survival mode, mucking thru life earning a living when the possibilities inside them are largely untapped.

People don't believe in themselves. Many of them are products of broken homes. Instead of nurture, they experienced rejection. So they build little impregnable castles of self-protection.

The ministry of believing in people has never been more needed. It's a great ministry; let me commend it to you. Look for the greatness planted in your family members or coworkers and call it out. Those strengths have been hidden too long. In calling them out, you yourself are also built up.

We all need someone who will believe in us in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

~e. e. cummings