Faith and Mental Health a 5-Day DevotionalParaugs

 It’s been widely noted that we cannot give away what we don’t already possess. Nowhere is this maxim truer than in the concept of love. Self-love is critical for the love of others. People who cannot see and respect what is good and lovely in their own selves will have trouble seeing and loving what is loveable in others. This is also why knowing God is so difficult if we don’t know ourselves. Scripture may tell us we are divinely made, but if we’ve never experienced the beauty of this divine design within us, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to love others as Jesus commands. 

So much of Christian faith calls for our lives to be guided by the love Jesus exemplified on the cross, a self-sacrificial love. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). In many respects, this is what makes Christianity so uniquely powerful. It is a religion firmly rooted in its insistence that giving away oneself for the sake of others is the best way to live, the way that will bring everlasting peace and satisfaction in life. I believe this is true. I also believe this can’t be done unless self-love is first firmly established, one committed to taking care of our own mental health as part of our pursuit to love others well.

Notice something else often overlooked in the command of Jesus. We are not called to love our neighbors more than ourselves but to love our neighbors as ourselves. Hardly a good commandment for those who happen to hate themselves or are indifferent to themselves. The command, at that point, sort of loses its teeth, doesn’t it? It follows then that we must first love and care for ourselves well if we are to offer our love in a helpful manner to others.

At the core of this is having a solid understanding of identity. That’s where we must start on the road to Christian self-care. If we’re going to be healthy then we have to know who we are.