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. 

Tea with the Queen : a tribute to Carol Wimber-Wong (1937-2025)

 I was saddened to hear of the passing of Carol Wimber -Wong this past week. I am also so grateful for her faith legacy and wanted to post a tribute to her for the way in which her life and ministry impacted mine. I am praying that the blessed hope of the resurrection would comfort and all who mourn her death and that her life would inspire thousands to keep following hard after Jesus. This is something I wrote about Carol in 2013 and it remains as meaningful as ever to me today. 

"While I have always wanted to see leaders raised up to make a kingdom impact, my vision for cultivating young leaders with profound character was catalyzed and clarified over a cup of tea in 2013. I don’t even like tea, but I was excited at the privilege of having a cup with Carol Wong, who had been married to John Wimber—the founder of the fellowship of Vineyard churches. John died in 1997 but, by then, God’s work in the Vineyard had left an indelible mark on the worldwide church in terms of worship, healing and the prophetic.

A number of years after John died, Carol married Ken Wong, a close family friend who had also been wid
owed. In fact, Ken was the doctor who treated John during his battle with cancer. I visited them with a friend named Carl Tuttle. Carl had joined Southlands a year prior and was a worshipleader who had first met John and Carol as a teen. Even though at the time Carl was a young Christian who could barely strum three chords on the guitar, John asked him to start leading worship in the Bible study that would one day become the first Vineyard church. Carl eventually grew to be a prolific songwriter with a number of his songs becoming Vineyard standards around the world. He was also the man who took over leadership of the Vineyard in Anaheim after John became ill. Carl eventually had a breakdown and left the Vineyard under a cloud of suspicion and resentment.

He lost his marriage, his ministry and many friends during that tragic season—including his friendship with Carol. Fifteen years later, Carl was penitent and hoping to build some of the bridges that had been broken. I reached out to Carol in the hopes of being a bridge builder. By God's grace this happened. Carl and Carol were reconciled and she welcomed Carl back as a prodigal son to the Vineyard family. He was restored in both relationship and ministry, partly because o0f that meeting that day. 

But I got much  more than I bargained for because having tea with Carol was like having tea with the queen. Sitting in their Yorba Linda home, Carol and Ken told me how they had recently been invited to Yorba Linda Friends Church’s 100th anniversary. It’s a remarkable thing to be able to celebrate a century of gospel impact. Yorba Linda Friends has an amazing record of faithfulness, extending as far as India, where they are the largest builder of schools among the Dalit caste.

Like any church, though, their tapestry has a few dark strands woven into the stunning pattern of their history. One of those strands was added at the end of the 1970s when the church asked the twelve families from a single Bible study to leave the church. The group had been meeting in the home of Carl’s mom and was led by John and Carol. They had begun exploring intimate worship, saturated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was an intoxicating time for these folks but uncomfortable for a church more cautious about the charismatic. In these rather messy circumstances, the Vineyard was planted.

Sitting in their lounge, Ken and Carol told me how delighted they were, more than thirty years later, to be invited to Yorba Linda Friends’ centenary celebrations and to be publicly honored as a movement that God had birthed and multiplied. I believe this kingdom gesture will have immense redemptive ripple effects in the time to come.

But here’s the part that arrested me. Carol tells me that they were sitting there at the 100th anniversary when she turned to Ken and had the following conversation.

“Kenneth, these people haven’t seen the miracles we’ve seen. They haven’t enjoyed the worship we’ve enjoyed. They haven’t heard the prophecy we’ve heard. But they’ve done something we didn’t really do.”

“What’s that?” asked Ken.

“They raised sons and daughters who love and serve God. They discipled their kids,” she replied.

Then she turned to me with royal fire in her eyes and said, “We thought if we loved our kids enough and if they were anointed enough, it would be enough. But it wasn’t. We didn’t really discipline our children. Don’t choose between powerful encounters and discipling the next generation.”

It was a statement of honor towards Yorba Linda Friends, and a humble admission that as a people hungry for the power of the Spirit, we’ve often been guilty of valuing anointing over character, sudden over slow, converts over disciples—breakthrough now over maturity one day.

I don’t believe we’re called to ignore one at the expense of the other. An expectation of God’s power breaking in now is vital to capture the imagination of the next generation. But I wonder how differently we would live and lead if we thought, “What would this mean in a century’s time?” And I wonder how different our churches would look if we placed as much value on a lifetime of anointed plodding as we did upon one moment of power."

An excerpt from my book,"Broken for Blessing : the underrated potential of the medium-sized multiplying church." 

The Cabin and the Gift Basket: a Thanksgiving Reflection

 About a decade ago, a very kind lady in our church heard that I was struggling to find time to finish my  Masters thesis in the midst of juggling ministry and family. She approached me and told me that her father pastored a church about an hour away from us that had a small cabin on the property. She said she had asked him if I could come up to study and write for a couple of days a month, and that he was happy to provide the cabin to me free of charge. The cabin was in Lake Gregory, a quaint little alpine town with a picturesque lake in the San Bernardino mountains.

To say I was grateful would be an understatement. I was overwhelmed by her thoughtfulness, her father's kindness and the church's generosity. For a few years, once a month, I would drive up to that cabin on a Thursday afternoon, spend the night, work through my day off on Friday and drive back in the evening to be with my family and church for the weekend. The cabin was a gift of predictable solitude. I would pray and sing on the drive  up and down the mountain. It wasn't just productive. It was life giving. Although it was a working retreat, I would look forward to that monthly pilgrimage up the mountain to that cozy little cabin. I'd always make a point of stopping by the church office to pick up the key and express sincere gratitude for this wonderful gift.

As if this were not gift enough, there would always be a gift basket on the kitchen table when I unlocked the cabin. The basket would have all manner of little treats in it; coffee, soda, gum, candy, chocolate. It was a most unexpected surprise to find that this church had not only given me the use of their cabin, but had thoughtfully considered how to make my stay even more comfortable with this gift basket. Over the months on the drive up to the cabin I would find myself anticipating that gift basket, wondering what they had put in it this time. To be honest, as the months past by, I began to think more about the gift basket than the gift of the cabin. I'd arrive, collect the key from the office and make a bee line to the kitchen table to see what was in the basket this time around.

Eventually, the day arrived when the inevitable happened. I collected the key from the church office and upon opening the cabin, I discovered, to my dismay, that they had forgotten to give me a gift basket. I searched the cabin high and low but my gift basket was nowhere to be found. I felt disappointed. Sadly, even a bit sorry for myself. 

After some time, self pity made way for conviction. I had become ungrateful and entitled. There I was, sitting in a comfortable, warm, free cabin, feeling sorry for myself that I did not have my little gift basket. I had forgotten the enormous gift of shelter, comfort and peace in my fixation with a passing caffeine and sugar rush! I sensed God speak to me in the moment about how the cabin and the gift basket revealed a broader pattern of ingratitude in my heart. I tended to fixate on His sweet, temporary blessings, taking for granted His immovable blessings toward me in Christ. His salvation, His grace, His presence, His Word and His people were something that I so easily took for granted. And yet, they were by far the more enduring gift. The gift basket of material possessions, ministry success, new adventures, physical health and pleasure were all common graces, but they were fleeting at best. I had become forgetful of the Lord's great benefits and fickle in my gratitude.  

I love Thanksgiving as a holiday. I love the traditions of turkey recipe swapping and tables laden with green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and pecan pie. I love settling in to watch the football feeling stuffed after the meal, enjoying a lazy afternoon with family and friends with nothing more on the agenda than perhaps a second helping of pecan pie. I love that we take time to go around the table to express gratitude for God's provision. That's how Thanksgiving originated, after all. But I'm also aware of the irony that Thanksgiving morphs very quickly into Black Friday. One moment we're expressing  gratitude for all that we have and the next we are rushing to the nearest mall or laptop to get the best deal on what we simply cannot live without. Discontentment crouches at the door of Thanksgiving. 

So, at this time of year I use the cabin and the gift basket lesson as a kind of Thanksgiving audit of my soul. I will begin by giving thanks to God for the gift basket:  For the common graces of where we live, the food on the table, the money in our bank account, the roof over our heads, the health in my body. I thank God for his ministry blessings and the new adventures I've enjoyed. I thank God for the rich gift of marriage, family and friendship in our lives.( To place these precious relational blessings on the same level as financial blessing would be foolish, but my point is that none off these blessings are guaranteed to be permanent.) Then I thank God for the cabin of His immovable blessings in Christ; His gospel of grace, His Word and His Spirit, His family and His kingdom. While I am thankful for both gift basket and cabin, I try to ensure that my joy is anchored in the immovable cabin rather than the movable gift basket. When I do this it helps me to avoid self pity when the gift basket seems less full or even absent. (That family member I wish was at the table with us, but is not. That check I am waiting for that has not arrived. That purchase I am wanting to make but cannot afford) Giving thanks for the cabin helps me avoid fixation with the gift basket. 

So, I commend this audit to you at Thanksgiving, both for your joy and God's honor. May Jesus shape in us a powerful posture of gratitude that rejoices in the Thanksgiving tradition, but endures beyond it.  

"Thanks be to God who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." (Ephesian 1:3 )

Happy Thanksgiving!