Clarity about a personal relationship with oneself keeps sifting through my mind. I’ve grown up in a very conservative Christian culture, so I expect when people don’t see me blatantly saying, “Your relationship with God is the most important aspect of mental health,” many of you panic and worry about my eternal salvation based on my syntax and how many people I just routed to the wide path of destruction. Is that over-dramatic? I am a sensitive, obsessive person who has grown up in a very nit picky, legalistic environment. Some of you do not hold onto the things like super-Velcro, and I am so happy for you if that is your personal setting. Some of you are like me, though, and I want to help others hold onto what is good and release what is unhealthy.
The two most important commands are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said every little law (that humans turned into nit picky Velcro latches of fear and insecurity, missing the big picture) is summed up by these two commands.
When God first introduced the FIRST command, back in Deuteronomy, he prefaced it by saying, “The LORD your God, the LORD is one.” Other than asking you to reflect on the three persons of God, the three basic identities of LOVE becoming centered in ONE, before instructing us to love Him with all of my self, I won’t say much. I think learning to go through the process of centering your personality and experiences and channeling what you uniquely discover into the North Star of God’s limitless Being is a realization of starting in one step and heading toward a place you’ll never reach — but that you can certainly know if you’re getting closer to or farther away from.
God lets us be creative because He made us creatively. He didn’t spell out every step or stamp out a one-size-fits-all mold.
Knowing yourself, the self that God made with a masterfully creative purpose, is essential to loving God. You do believe you were uniquely and creatively made, right?
And you can only love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. No, you’re not worthy, and you’re undeserving. But you are wanted and you are worth it. If you don’t strive to believe that about the image God made in you, then you won’t even see the image He made in others. You can try, though. Keep trying. God will give you the creative fuel you need for the next step when you run empty.
Am I condoning selfishness? No! But you are a self who requires attention for wellbeing to be cultivated. And you have to try and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes every day about how to be well without being selfish. But if you aren’t well, especially out of self-neglect or self-hate, then you’re a different kind of selfish black hole. I am speaking from my own place.
So if you got prickly and nit picky about my last post, I wanted to clarify. We are sitting in service today, hearing how we should love God and others, loathing ourselves and hiding because of how overwhelmed we feel by the call to love like Jesus did.
He gave us a North Star, not an impossible mission. We can all see the North Star from our different vantage points and move closer. But you have to observe from where you are presently to take one step. And then take another.
So, yeah, learn to have a good relationship with yourself. And know that it’s because God wants you just like He made you. He hopes you’ll keep seeking His North Star, and he gave you faith, hope, and love to help you keep maturing through the journey. Rest, work, play, help others, observe present matters.
And don’t give up.
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