The phrase "I'm better than I deserve" doesn't make sense. How can you be better than you deserve?

Maybe it's a bastardization of "I have a better life than I deserve, thanks to jeezus".

I haven't heard that phrase, but I have talked to some Christians who have told me that it doesn't matter what happens in this world because they will receive their reward in heaven. I find that bullshit too.

Sounds like something I would say. Just a self-deprecating and playful response to "How are you?"' Itake it to mean that things are going very well for me!

The phrase is a rationalization intended to make one feel good when things go badly or when a person buys into the 'I'm a sinner' & only by god's grace am I saved. Boohoohoo!

I've heard
"It's better than I deserve"
and
He/she is no better than they aught to be"
or even
"I deserve better"

but not this

Sorry, I have never heard this phrase, and to me it makes no sense whatsoever..I have heard similar but sensible phrases like ""dating above my pay grade".

Is it about undervaluation?

Mainly bible belt, lot of delusional thinking there

I live on the Left Coast, but travel around the country a lot, and have never heard this. It wouldn’t even make sense to me if I hadn’t read your post and some of the comments. My first reaction to it is: “deserve” according to whom? The gods? Society? Mom? Strikes me less as self-deprecating and more as “self-disempowering,” which is something too many religions encourage.

I'd guess that it is a teaser used by evilangelicals. If anyone should question it, they can segue into a discussion of your beliefs. They can then invite you into their church, or see if you are 'other'. Presumably it is based on the Christian notion of humans being sinful from the Fall of Adam. Coming from the evilangelicals, it then translated into colloquial parlance.

I never heard that phrase and -definitely- don’t subscribe it. As a former European Catholic, I was never imbued the sense of guilt Catholics seem to have in the US.

I hear it all the time.
I believe it's meant to be self-deprecating.
At least those from whom I hear it most are decent people, who aren't trying to be anything but affable.
It is, however, another one of those "Southernisms".

I, too, find it annoying.

Any particular reason you determined that it had to have some religious significance?

I have a friend who uses that term and I've always taken it as just a self-deprecating gesture.
This guy is not overtly religious, originally from Michigan and was in the Air Force. In his current business he's also an under-promise and over-deliver kind of guy.

It's some odd Yin & Yang.
On the one hand, they are religious and serve with many good deeds.
OTOH...the EGOS are massive !!

If everything is "better than you deserve" it is because bible believers know you are just a miserable sinner worthy of hellfire. I've heard the phrase and it is the kind of crap that a cult would use. It is also used by many Evangelicals.

I think religion convinces the wrong people to say it. Some SOBs are better off than they deserve to be.

No..can’t say I’ve ever heard that expression, I’m pleased to say. Maybe hasn’t reached these shores yet.

This statement was made to me by two different people in the same day!

The Christian god is an abusive parent. The Alpha, the Omega, Omnipotent and Omniscient, yet somehow unable or unwilling to prevent horrors that befall his creations and gets pissed off enough to destroy the world when they exercise the 'free will' that he supposedly gave them. All good things you get, no matter how hard you worked to get them, come from God. All bad things, no matter how undeserved, are your own fault. No wonder they seem to be disconnected from reality.

I never once heard that phrase in the Christian faith in which I was brought up. In fact, quite the opposite. We (humanity) are sinful and not worthy of anything. Only through the grace of Christ may we become worthy to join Him in eternity. Humanity is depraved and is continually declining due to sin and the increasing surrender to the influences of Satan. In such a condition, according to Christian orthodoxy, how could we possibly be "better than we deserve?" Not that I believe a word of it, but that is what I was taught.

Yes I heard that phrase from my mom's mouth but NO for religious reasons. When I was in my twenties my mom said ,if a married man or a womanizer tries to sweeten
your ears walk away from them. You deserve better than that.

I grew up in Los Angeles, and lately lived in the Portland/Vancouver are and have never heard that line before. I may be a regional thing.

That saved a ""wretch"" like me????
We sing that from birth with no idea wtf it means

I never heard it and I don't understand it. So, they are saying that they deserve to go to "Hell" and because they are so pious, they will escape this fate?