The worm mentality is a highly addictive mentality because it is driven by a very ego-pleasing assumption that we are supreme at something—in this case, supreme at being hideous. All humans want to think they are good at something. In the worm mentality, we claim to excel in being heinous. Of course having humans reject us is just stage one. The ultimate victory is to believe that we have succeeded in overwhelming God Himself. For the unsaved soul, the ultimate accomplishment is to believe that God has eternally rejected us because even with all of His God powers, He simply can’t bear to be in our ultra-evil presence. For the Christian, the ultimate victory is to believe that we have succeeded in getting God to turn away from us—even to revoke our salvation. Again, the logic stream is that we’re so awesome at being hideous that even God finds Himself hopelessly trumped.

Now in real life, God is never threatened by His own creations, nor is He impressed by our delusions of grandeur. When God does not shut down on us and give us that ultimate form of rejection which our egos are craving, we often try to help Him along by rejecting Him first. We like to go about this in a grand, boastful way, saying things like, “I know that God finds me unbearable, so I’m going to ask Him to please throw me into Hell. After all, I wouldn’t want to corrupt His perfect Heaven with my vile self.” Notice how such thinking exalts you as the ultimate giver—the one who is voluntarily sacrificing yourself in order to protect God from further distress. This is nothing more than ego run amuck. God doesn’t need your protection, and what you’re trying to protect Him from is a threat which only exists in your own mind. You have decided that because you are so supremely vile, even your own Creator feels personally threatened by you. You tell yourself that you actually possess the power to obstruct God’s plans, wreck His Heaven, or halt His universe. My, what a powerful little thing you are. And if you weren’t so altruistic in nature—so willing to crucify yourself in order to save us all from your toxic presence, well, we’d all be lost. Once you set yourself up in this kind of ultimate savior role, you are naturally going to be opposed to truth, because truth is going to be a major pride buster and your pride is out of control.

The worm mentality is a self-destructive mentality in which you are the only one who suffers. By the time you’re done cutting yourself off from other people and from God, you end up alone, bitter, and empty. You see, the truth is that you have deep core needs which only God can satisfy. The whole notion that you can ever cut ties with Him is as absurd as claiming you can get through a day without breathing. You really don’t get to call how the universe runs because you are not in control. You will never be in control, and God will never be impressed with your vileness. To God, you’re not worse than anyone else, you’re just caught up in a superiority complex that is driven by an intense fear of being average and forgettable. Well, God offers you something better than being ultra-vile. He says that you are very special to Him and that you matter to Him. He doesn’t say you’re ultimate—He says that He is ultimate, and you are an insignificant speck by comparison. But you’re His speck, and He made you for the purpose of forming a positive, personal relationship with you. In order for that relationship to get off the ground, you’re going to need to stop trying to dominate Him and you’re going to have to open yourself up to accepting a different value system. Right now you’re defining your worth by how hideous you are. It’s your great vileness that makes you have value in your eyes. When we fear that we don’t have a chance at competing in positive areas, we turn to negative ones. At bottom, we just want to excel at something. Well, God makes succeeding with Him very easy because He isn’t comparing you to other people. You don’t have to be super scum or super good to hold onto His love. He loves you because He wants to—it has nothing to do with you impressing Him. God says that if you will submit to His Authority in your life and ask Him to make you all that He wants you to be, He will break you out of this self-destructive path you’re on and teach you a much better way to live. But first you have to decide that you want to be healed, because it’s not God’s usual style to force cures on people. He gives us the option of wallowing in egotistical delusions and deciding that we are having a far greater impact on Him than we really are. How anticlimactic would it be to live your life thinking you’re ultra evil, only to get to Heaven and have God say, “Why didn’t you ever listen to Me on earth? We could be a lot closer than we are right now.” God doesn’t find you threatening in the slightest. He sees you more like a little child who is refusing to pay attention in school, therefore you’re not learning the basics of reading and writing. Certainly immaturity has its appeal, because growing up requires a lot of work and some pride grinding adjustments. But choosing to grow up is the far more rewarding choice in the long run, and the only one that will truly satisfy your soul.