Self-Care from a Biblical Perspective

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Self care. This term has popped up all over in the last few years and it is the topic of my first Monday Musings of Grace for 2019.

After floating the idea to my Instagram followers I decided to do a mini series on the topic. I hope it is helpful to you!

Self Care in 2019

Self care is honestly not a topic that I dwell on regularly. Rather, I neglect it and allow stress to consume me without recognizing it. So when I started thinking about the things that need to change in 2019, self care kept coming to mind in a million different ways.

However, they usually didn’t present themselves as “self care”. Instead, it was negative self-talk:

• I failed at reading the Bible this week
• I’ve gained 10 pounds over the last year
• I can’t seem to find balance between work/home life

These nagging little thoughts never made me question my self-worth or doubt my abilities. But they certainly weren’t helping me be content in my walk with God, self reflection, or family life.

So I’m diving into self care head on for 2019 and wanted to see what the Bible has to say about the topic. If things are going to change then I want them to be reflective of Biblical wisdom.

But first, I find it so interesting to consider how our culture and basic human tendencies influence this topic as well. Stick with me for a very short side bar. 😉

Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”

-Eleanor Brown

Basic Human Needs

As I was considering this topic I kept coming back to how culture impacts us. The pressure we place on ourselves is astounding. Expectations are extremely high. We no longer live in a culture where we are content to take care of our families’ basic needs to live a simple life. Instead, we have to always be achieving more, accumulating more, and getting ahead in ways the world would consider successful.

And my question became,

WHY?

Psychologists tell us with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that humans have 5 basic levels of need:

1. Physiological: Food, Water, Sleep
2. Safety: Shelter, Security
3. Love & Belonging: Relationships
4. Esteem: Feeling of Accomplishment and Self-Esteem
5. Self-Actualization: Self- Fulfillment and Achievement of Full Potential

Updated versions of this include aesthetic needs and parental goals. Regardless of whether this statement is 100% reflective of each person, the question becomes, at what point in these 5 levels do you start to neglect your own self care?

For each person who reads this it will be different. Some may struggle to even achieve level 1. Some may hit the brakes on level 3. Others will thrive until level 5 and then shut down. Whatever level you start to see the tension at, stress is stress. And whatever form of stress you’re dealing with isn’t the problem. Rather, it’s that it becomes consuming to the point that self care is forgotten.

No matter what your personal breaking point is, we are all working towards a goal as imperfect and broken people who can’t do it alone. The question becomes, are our goals reflective of Biblical truths? And if not, what should we be focusing on?

The Bible on Self Care

So, in order to see how to fix this flawed system of personal achievement that humans have been bent towards for thousands of years, we need to head back to the Word of God.

The Bible doesn’t overtly give a guide to self care. You won’t find a book and chapter that says, “In order to take care of yourself you must do 1, 2, 3.” Rather, I’ve dug deep into the first book of the New Testament, Matthew, and found amazing verses that can help us see the importance of tending to the basic necessities of life.

Walking through the life of Jesus and seeing how He reacted to this topic was of great interest to me. And I hope that you will find it useful as well!

Your Homework

Bet you didn’t expect that, huh? 😉 I have two things I’d love for you to do this coming week to help yourself understand self-care more.

1. Identify the Areas You Neglect

First, take a look at the basic needs list above and identify which areas you tend to let self-care go on.

With One Addition

Add a number 6 to Maslow’s Hierarchy, would you? Spiritual maturity. As a Christian I think our society consistently overlooks the achievement of spiritual maturity. Our lives are a process of sanctification and if we are stagnant in our faith then perhaps that is the area we need to tend to more with self-care.

This might be a little out of the ordinary, but I think that without adding this #6 we are shorting ourselves the most important element to a fulfilling life.

2. Read the Book of Matthew

As I read through the book of Matthew I just kept coming back to how important it is to have the full context of the story. I can pull out individual verses and show them to you, but walking through Jesus’ life in its entirety plays a big role in some of the conclusions I came to.

Next week I’ll post my final post in this mini series expounding on some of the revelations I had and the verses they came from. But for this week, I’d love for you to do a little homework. Read the book of Matthew. Or at least start it!

Don’t get bogged down in the first 17 verses of genealogy. I promise it gets less confusing. It isn’t an overly long book, so if you tackle a bit each day it is feasible to read in a week.

Next Time

I hope that this first post has given you a few things to consider as you do some self-reflection and Bible reading this week. Next time I will conclude this series on self-care with some Biblical wisdom I’ve learned the last few weeks!

{UPDATE: This series has concluded! You can read the next two posts in the series now!}

• Post 2: What Does the Bible Say?
• Post 3: What’s the Purpose of Self Care?

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Be blessed this week friends!