Lesson 5. Feeling Inferior. Promise of the Week: I will not feel inferior because I know God loves me.

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Thomas Morris
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1 Lesson 5 Feeling Inferior Promise of the Week: I will not feel inferior because I know God loves me. Memory Verse: 1 John 4:4, Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Leader Note: Who tells these girls, on a daily basis, that they have worth? For some it s their parents. The words they hear at home build them up and give them confidence for who God made them. For some it is teachers and coaches at school. They look forward to coming to school to hear positive words. For precious others though, no one does. Their lives are void of loving, kind words that highlight their gifts and remind them they are beautiful and loved. What an opportunity for Girlz 4 God to pour love and spiritual encouragement into their hearts! Our schools are filled with young people who face feelings of inferiority (less-than, weak, unimportant). It s easy to focus on things we can t do: I can t cook like she can. I can t sing like she can. I can t pray like she can. Her clothes are better than mine. She has more friends than me. That teacher likes her better because she s smarter. We COMPARE ourselves with others and come up short. Sometimes we transfer that to the way God sees us and assume he likes/loves others more than us. This is a lie from Satan and your goal today is to explain that these feelings are false. Any thought or message whispered from the world that makes us feel inferior is a lie. Our God delights in each of us!! Recruit the other moms/women in the room to identify the girls that look like they are suffering from inferiority. Go to them and say a personal word of love and encouragement. It might be one of the only ones they hear today.

2 Lesson 5: Feeling Inferior CAPTIVATE: Superior or Inferior? Props - 9 cups each filled with Dr. Pepper (mark each cup with a letter or number so the girls don t know where it came from) - 3 with Dr. Pepper from a can - 3 with Dr. Pepper from Chick-fil-A - 3 with Dr. Pepper from McDonald s * Feel free to substitute other restaurants to fit your specific opinion or what s closest to the school since you are waking up EARLY. I love Dr. Pepper and I have an opinion on which restaurant has the most superior Dr. Pepper. I have set up a little taste test this morning so I need 3 volunteers that think they too are Dr. Pepper fanatics! First ask the three volunteers to name which restaurant has their favorite Dr. Pepper. Then have them do a taste test and vote on which cup was superior (the best) and which was inferior (the worst). Reveal where each sample came from and see if their vote matched their original opinion. * If a girl says they all taste the same then she is not really a Dr. Pepper fanatic because everyone knows Chick-fil-A has the BEST Dr. Pepper! When it comes down to it, what makes this particular cup of Dr. Pepper superior? An opinion. Everyone has opinions and some of you are allowing someone else s opinion of what is superior and inferior to determine how you feel about yourself. In fact, some of you may be letting your own opinion determine how you feel about yourself. Today we re doing to discuss God s truth and why it far outweighs everyone else s OPINION. CONNECT: What does it mean if something is superior? Superior = higher in rank or position, important What does it mean if something is inferior? Inferior = lower in rank or position, unimportant, insignificant How many of you have ever felt inferior before? I have! * Share personal story of when you felt less-than/inferior.

3 Sample: In middle school everyone tried out for every sport. If you didn t make the team then you got the privilege (NOT!) of being considered off-season and running a mile around the school instead of practicing with the team. Basketball is not my sport AT ALL. I am out of breath after one sprint down the court, but I did like volleyball and really wanted to make the team. When the results were posted, my name was on the list for the wait for it C TEAM. Um what? It felt like the coach was making up new teams just so he wouldn t have to console a bunch of crying middle school girls. Needless to say, we were less than good volleyball players. Our serves barely got over the net, lots of dropped balls and the WIN category was few and far between. The A Team seemed to walk around with crowns on their heads while we spent our practices running sprints for too many dropped balls. We all felt inferior compared to the A and B Team girls. It s natural for us to compare ourselves with others and to even find areas where others might be better or have more talent than we do. CULTIVATE: There are three areas where teenage girls struggle most with feelings of inferiority and comparison. 1. Looks 80% of 10 year-old girls are afraid of being fat By middle school, up to 70% of girls are dissatisfied with 2 or more parts of their body Girls self-esteem plummets at age 12 and doesn t improve until age 20 ( 62% of all girls feel insecure or not sure of themselves 71% of girls with low self-esteem feel their appearance does not measure up, including not feeling pretty enough, thin enough or stylish or trendy enough 78% of girls with low self-esteem admit it is hard to do well in school when you do not feel good about how you look A girl s self-esteem is more strongly related with how she views her own body shape and body weight, than how much she actually weighs ( Resources/real-girl-real-pressure.aspx) There s a reason the Bible wasn t a picture book. The Bible even says of Christ in Isaiah 53:2b-3, He had no beauty or majesty to

4 attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hid their faces he was despised and we held him in low esteem. The world thought Jesus was inferior. You are saturated with images of movie stars and Pinterest perfection and friends highlight reels on Instagram. To seek a standard of beauty in anything the world puts forth will always cause us to come up short in ourselves. 1 Samuel 16:7b For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. 2. Likeability ( Study by Oregon State University Girls Receive Conflicting Career Messages from Media For the study, 100 girls and 76 boys ages 14 to 18 were shown photographs of model Heidi Klum, actress Jennifer Aniston, CEO Carly Fiorina and military pilot Sarah Deal Burrow. Klum and Aniston represented the appearance-focused careers and Fiorina and Deal Burrow represented the nonappearance focused careers. Girls generally rated the women in the appearance-focused careers higher on likeability than the women in the nonappearance focused careers. Girls also rated the women in the appearance-focused photos as more competent than the other women. Boys, on the other hand, found the women in the non-appearance focused careers were more competent. The boys also ranked the appearance-focused photos lower on likeability. The findings highlight the conflicting messages girls receive in the media about careers and success for women, said researcher Elizabeth Daniels, an assistant professor of psychology who studies the effects of media on body image and gender. Girls know they should look up to female doctors and scientists, but they also know that women in appearancefocused jobs get rewarded by society, Daniels said. It is,

5 therefore, reasonable to think they would prefer women in those jobs. It seems as if our girls equate beauty with likeability. If the mirror says I m pretty then others will like me more. When you look in the mirror and are dissatisfied with what you see, it greatly affects how you THINK others view you. Example: I think my nose is too big. = Everyone is staring at my nose. I feel ugly today. = No one will want to sit next to me at lunch. I wish my hair were naturally straight. = Girls with straight hair are more popular. God s like for us doesn t take the world s definition of success into account. One day (probably a long way away) the world will understand that their definition is wrong. God created us therefore he sets the standard. Thankfully, God didn t wait for us to fix ourselves up or make our lives perfect before he sent his Son to die for us. The Bible says he LOVED us EVEN WHILE we were still sinning. Romans 5:8, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 3. Love This brings us to love. Our world says that if you are pretty, successful and if people like you, then you deserved to be loved. We are so confused when it comes to love. Our world says love is: - A Feeling (usually showcased with a handsome man and romantic music and roses) - Comes and Goes you can be IN love with your boyfriend for three weeks and fall OUT of love after 3 rd period English class - All About You love is what makes YOU feel good and what fits YOUR lifestyle and is more about what YOU get out of it then the other person The Bible speaks a much different message. 1 John 4:19, We love because he first loved us. And how did he show this love first? 1 John 4:9-10 (NLT), God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love not that we loved

6 God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Our girls feel that they are unworthy of being loved either because they re not pretty enough or talented enough or liked enough or popular enough and the list goes on. They feel inferior to others girls who they think meet the world s standard and seem to be easily loved. Remind them today how much God loves them - He created all the parts of them that they so quickly deem as ugly (freckles, thighs, nose, feet, frizzy hair) - He accepts them no matter how they feel, what they ve done, how much they ve sinned, who their friends are, where they sit at lunch, etc. - He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we would never have to be separated from him - THIS IS LOVE CULTIVATE: To consider someone inferior or superior is to place the world s standard above God. Satan wants you to believe that you have to work hard for the approval of others. In this way he keeps you chasing after worldly affections rather than resting in the love of God. Are any of you tired of worrying what others think? Are any of you worn out from trying to meet an unattainable standard? Are any of you frustrated with feeling inferior? Today I want you to hear this! 1 John 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. If Jesus lives inside of you then you are not of the world, you are from God. Your worth is not determined by a worldly standard but by God. You have to listen to the right voice. Jesus will help you know whether what you hear is truth or error. When you look in the mirror in the morning and you hear a whisper, You are ugly then that voice is error/not true. When you sit down in class and hear a whisper No one likes you then that voice is error/not true. Say to yourself, NO, I will not listen to that! Ask

7 God to speak truth into your heart and I promise you will hear him say, I love you. COACH: I want everyone to put your left hand around your ear (like you re cupping your ear to hear something better). - When you feel like Satan is whispering lies into your heart - When you feel like all you see is things that make you feel inferior - When you are tired of chasing looks, likeability and love LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF TRUTH You are not alone. Everyone has feelings of inferiority. Every girl worries about her looks and whether people like her and if she is truly loved. Say with me, I am not alone! You are a child of God. He created you in His image and everything he makes is beautiful. The Bible says he knows even the number of hairs on your head! (Luke 12:7) Psalm 139:13-14 says, For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Say with me, I am a child of God. Comparison is the root of all feelings of inferiority. We compare our weakness with someone else s strength. God made you unique and no matter how hard you try; you can t change yourself into being someone else. If you were not you then the world would be missing someone very precious. Say with me, I will stop comparing myself to others. When doubt sneaks in to steal your joy then be brave! Look that doubt square in the face and tell it NO. You will NOT fall into Satan s lies of feeling inferior. You will NOT believe that everyone else is better than you. 2 Timothy 1:7, for God gave us a spirit NOT of fear but of POWER and LOVE and self-control. Say with me, I will be brave because God loves me! I challenge you to go home today and write our memory verse on your mirror in the bathroom. Read it to yourself every day, as you are getting ready in the morning. REMIND yourself to listen to God s voice and to find your beauty, your acceptance and your love in God first. 1 John 4:4b, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

8 Promise: I will not feel inferior because I know God loves me. Leader Note: Ask the girls to raise their hands and make the following promise: Girlz 4 God Promise of the Week: I will not feel inferior because I know God loves me. Memory Verse: 1 John 4:4, Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. to the Parents:

9 Re: Girlz 4 God Lesson 5 Feeling Inferior Dear Girlz 4 God Parents, Thank you for allowing your daughter to attend Girlz 4 God this week! The world is trying hard to make our girls feel inferior to others through comparison. Look this way, act this way, dress this way and the list goes on. Girls think if they do these things then they will be accepted and popular. Too many of them walk through life feeling less than and inferior because they cannot attain this worldly standard. Today we encouraged the girls to stop looking around them and look to Jesus. He created each of them and thinks they are beautiful. He doesn t ask us to perform so he can like us. The Bible says he died for us while we still sinning. He knew we couldn t be perfect on our own. God loves them no matter what they say or do or look like. His love is not a feeling that comes and goes but is steady and true. Girlz 4 God Promise of the Week: I will not feel inferior because I know God loves me. Memory Verse: 1 John 4:4, Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Lesson 9. Thanksgiving. Promise of the Week: I will give thanks to God in all circumstances.

Lesson 9. Thanksgiving. Promise of the Week: I will give thanks to God in all circumstances. Lesson 9 Thanksgiving Promise of the Week: I will give thanks to God in all circumstances. Memory Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT, Be thankful in all circumstances; for this is God s will for you who belong