Living in the tension between self-care and self-denial

                                                    Camino de Santiago north of Porto, Portugal  

I see a spiritual director called Bill once a month, who has a been a profound gift to me for the past 7 years.  Some time ago Bill said to me. “You need to give yourself more to self-care.” 

I found myself having a visceral response towards that advice.

 “Bill," I responded,  "I think I understand what you are saying but I cannot tell you how many times I have had people say something like, 'My therapist says I cannot love others unless I first love myself and so I am going to prioritize self-care for now.' This usually means they stop serving, stop connecting regularly with Christian community and begin becoming very self-absorbed, even self-indulgent. How does this counsel line up with Jesus call to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me? ” (Matthew 16:24)

Bill responded, “I can see how immature people can abuse that kind of counsel.  But you are not that kind of person. You are highly responsible. And I still believe you need to consider giving yourself to more self-care for the sake of serving others. If you don’t care for yourself there will be nothing left of yourself to deny.” 

This began a time of reflection for me on what self care did and didn’t mean. It seems to me to be an important truth in-tension for those who follow Christ. I found a helpful piece from British theologian John Stott on what self-care does not mean. 

'Loving yourself' is not Jesus' 3rd Great Commandment:  John Stott

 "Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this self-esteem, self-love movement under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbor as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbor. But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced.

First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say, ‘the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbor, and the third to love yourself.’ He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of ‘as yourself’ supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbor-love, because ‘no one ever hated his own body’ (Eph 5:29 ). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’ (Mt 7:12 ). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commanded.

Second, and linguistically, the verb is agapao, and agape love means self-sacrifice in service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is nonsense.

Third, and theologically, self-love is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin is being curved in on oneself (as Luther puts it). One of the marks of ‘the last days’ is that people will be ‘lovers of self’ instead of ‘lovers of God’ (2 Tim 3:1-5 ). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbor to self. Let’s put this silliness to bed.

But then, how are we to regard ourselves? How are we to avoid the extremes of self-hatred and self-love? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation.”

Whatever we are by creation we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our sexuality (whether masculinity or femininity), our family life, our gifts of aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and experience of community, our awareness of the transcendent majesty of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him. All this (and more) is part of our created humanness. True, it has been tainted and twisted by sin. Yet Christ came to redeem it, not to destroy it. So, we must gratefully and positively affirm it."

Stott goes on…

"Whatever we are by the Fall, however, we must deny or repudiate: our irrationality, our moral perversity, our blurring of sexual distinctives and lack of sexual self-control, the selfishness that spoils our family life, our fascination with the ugly, our lazy refusal to develop God’s gifts, our polluting and spoiling of the environment, the antisocial tendencies that inhibit true community, our proud autonomy, and our idolatrous refusal to worship the living and true God. All this (and more) is part of our fallen humanness. Christ came not to redeem this but to destroy it. So we must strenuously deny it."

So, we are to avoid the extremes of self-hatred and self-love by managing the tension between self-denial and self-affirmation. That’s a good start.

Affirming Self-Care

But, practically, how does self-affirmation flow into self-care? How do we take care of ourselves without becoming self-indulgent, without getting curved in on ourselves?

It seems that this tension is held beautifully in the life of Jesus. 

In Mark 6 :30 after the brutal death of His cousin John, Jesus said two his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for a while.” 

Jesus’ self-care consisted of retreat, solitude, rest, eating, recreation, beauty and friendship. V 31 It was in response to grief, tragedy, busyness and depletion. "Many people were coming and going and they did not even have time to eat." Self-care recognizes signs of physical, emotional and relational depletion early, and makes plans to replenish them. 

What fills your tank? What do you look forward to? If the answer is nothing, you are in danger of redlining on reserve. Sabbath is God's gift of self care and his common grace is available to us all to replenish our bodies and souls. 

Signs of poor self-care are boasting about busyness, emotional numbness, mental foggyness, masking of pain with media/sugar/alcohol/tobacco/spending, procrastinating about our health,  the desire to stay in bed longer than usual, a refusal to rest on our day off, an inability to say no, irritability, when ministry becomes merely a job, reluctance to exercise, neglecting grooming, lack of romance or emotional connection with our spouse, daydreaming about vacation, a lack of joy! 

Do you have a wise, mature, sacrificial disciple of Jesus who can call you out on this without leading you into self-indulgence? Who is your friend, who sees it as their role to care for you rather than unload on you? God wants us to have a happy, holy, healthy self to give away! We take care of ourselves for the sake of serving others. 

In Praise of Self-Denial

What about self-denial? In some ways it is noble to say, “Yes, you’re right. I work too hard. I am bad at self-care. But to admit that I am bad at self-denial  stabs at the core of what it is to be a Christ-follower. “If anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” 

Mark 6:34 tells us, that when Jesus went to ashore for his retreat, "He saw a large crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples approached him and said, “This place is deserted, and it is already late. Send them away so they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages to buy themselves something to eat.” “You give themselves something to eat,” he responded. How many loaves do you have. Go and see.”

Jesus exhibited a powerful ability to deny himself, motivated by compassion for people. He allowed his retreat with his disciples to be interrupted because he was concerned that the crowds were like ‘sheep without a shepherd.’ He cared for people spiritually and physically, not out of abundance but out of his lack. He pressed into His father for miraculous power to nourish spiritually and physically hungry people and God met him profoundly. 

 Verse 45 tells us that he did not forget his retreat. Immediately after the miracle,  He dismissed the crowd and told his disciples to get into the boat.  But he was willing for his routines to be interrupted and and margins to be invaded for the sake of people. He had a rhythm more than a routine.

How do we know if we are poor at self-denial? We have an inflexible routine that cannot be interrupted by people, we have an inflexible threshold of service that cannot be stretched by unique demand, we are motivated more by duty than compassion, we only give to people out of abundance not out of lack. We resent people arriving at our house unannounced. We are extremely boundaried about serving beyond our defined ministry responsibility. 

So, let's ask for the Spirit's power and wisdom to live in this healthy tension. We need help  to willingly deny ourselves for the sake of others, for that is the last thing our flesh wants to do.  But let's not forget to care for ourselves for the sake of serving others. Because if we don't there will be nothing left of ourselves to deny.