I love myself and it's not bad

Among Christians, the expression self-love has unfortunately come to mean something to be avoided at any cost. This is far from a helpful concept.

Jesus said we were to love our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves (Mark 12 vs 31). If he had meant we weren't to love ourselves. If he had meant we weren't to love ourselves, he would never have used this analogy. On the other hand, he also said we were to deny ourselves (Matt. 16 vs 24). Is this a contradiction? If we face the real issues involved in the concept of love as Jesus taught and demonstrated it, no.

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Undoubtedly we are to deny or refuse the kind of destructive self-love that propels us into the grabbing behavior in which Mother Eve indulged herself. But there is a right and creative self-love that is affirmed by Jesus' instruction to love our neighbors with the kind of concern we have for ourselves.

Concern is the key word to this puzzling concept of self-love. You and I must have genuine, God-directed concern for ourselves. For example, if you drink all the coffee you want, it can be destructive. There is no concern here for your real self, only a desire gratified at the moment your nerves are screaming for more caffeine. If you really care about yourself, you'll drink only a cup or two, and stop.

There is nothing destructive in real self-love. In fact, if we don't ourselves, we belittle the God who cared enough about us to create us in the first place. More than that, we hamper our own growth. Here we must make a distinction between hampering and pampering: The right kind of self-love never hampers, but the wrong kind of self-love always pampers.

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I have just returned from a short but exhausting speaking engagement. The first two days I was home, I slept as long as I wanted to in the mornings. This was not pampering. Had I forced myself to get up before I was properly rested, I would have been hampering. My knowledge of myself and my limitations when I have not had enough sleep, clears the issue here. Some people seem able to go on working day after day, with night after night short sleep. I cannot. This I know and accept about myself, and act accordingly.

Too much to eat at bedtime, lack of sleep and adequate exercise, irregular functional habits, a sagging mattress, or incorrect glasses can cloud the windows of our souls. To mistreat our bodies means we don't love ourselves in the right way. The wrong kind of self-love is in reality self-hatred.

Understanding and loving ourselves does not imply the right to self-pity and resentment. Can you imagine Jesus urging us to love ourselves in that destructive way? There is a right kind of self-love, and there is a wrong kind.

It seems equally difficult to discover the truth about both. Most of us have both, and then comes the problem of distinguishing. Which is to be dealt with? Which is to be cultivated?

When we find our "love" causing strain of any kind for the other person, we can know at once that it is destructive self-love. If you aren't, first of all, concerned for the welfare and freedom of the person you think you love, then you are mistaken in your idea of real love.

To love ourselves rightly, we must leave ourselves free to be whole persons in the midst of anything life can hand us. When we love and respect ourselves this way, we will have tapped the Source of love and will find ourselves able to give constructive, creative devotion to those whom God has given us to love.

To love ourselves rightly, we must love ourselves in God. We must respect ourselves as God's creation, and love ourselves as redeemed daughters of the King.

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