self-care

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about self-care, and for good reason.  If we do not take care of ourselves, if we do not take steps to maintain our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, we will be of little to no value to others.  We will be so busy spinning around in our own little lives that we will not be able to love them and serve them the way God called us to.

The problem is that self-care can so easily turn into self-consumption, if we are not careful.  Self-care can subtly become an end in itself, and it was never intended to be that way.  A soul turned in on itself will eventually become lifeless and stagnant and desolate.  As the old saying goes, “The Dead Sea is dead for a reason—no outflow.”

You see, we are not the center of the universe, God is.  We were made by him and we were made for him. (Eph. 2:10) The “for” part is the part we tend to forget.  We were made for God, he was not made for us.  God does not revolve around us, we revolve around him.  It is so easy to forget that.  It is easy to get so lost in our smaller stories, that we miss the larger story he has invited us into—his story.  Thus, self-care was never intended to be simply for self’s sake, but for God’s sake.  It was meant to help us be the people he made us to be and do the things he’s called us to do.