If You Like the Way You Look That Much…

“If you like the way you look that much

Then baby, you should go and love yourself.”

Justin Bieber, telling it like it is. There comes a point where loving yourself and self care can become selfish. Self absorbed. Self involved.

Jesus talks about “loving your neighbour as yourself”, so we can understand that we do need to love and care for ourselves, as we seek to love others around us. We need healthy boundaries between us and other people so that we can protect our emotions, stress levels, physical bodies, and more. We get to choose how we respond to external situations and if we let the needs or crises of others take over too much space in our lives.

But sometimes it becomes all about us and not at all about our neighbour. We spend so much time and energy loving ourselves sometimes in the name of “self care” that there is nothing in our schedule to care for others who are in great need.

Dr. Merry defines narcissism as whenever we look to ourselves for our sense of value. This self involved behaviour is when we fully rely on ourselves, believing ourselves to be the centre of the universe that everyone else orbits around, rather than remembering we do not have the whole world in our hands.

The centre of a healthy life is God. He is our focus, our great love, our delight, our hope, and our strength. True life and power come from him as our source. Yet so often we rely just on ourselves and our own gifts and abilities, forgetting the One who gave us those gifts and abilities in the first place.

God desires nothing less than our whole self, for our whole life, in holy devotion to him. We should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the remedy for the selfish life. It turns our devotion to him, and in Jesus we find our true value, which in turn allows us to live with hands and eyes wide open to serving others out of a place of complete security. May the Holy Spirit help you in this.

Reflection:

-What percentage of photos on your social media are photos of yourself? Or self-promoting?

-What would it look like for you to make more posts that encourage or help others?

-How many hours a week do you spend on your own body care, appearance, relaxation, and indulgences?

-How often in a week or month do you have planned time to care for others?

-In what ways do you pray for other people, and in what ways do you pray for yourself?