Biblical Self-Care

Do you struggle with guilt when spending time or resources on yourself? Are you feeling self-conscious about your home with all the COVID-19 ZOOM meetings?? I know I do! Just this summer, I was contemplating adding another ministry opportunity to my plate when I clearly heard the Holy Spirit tell me, “No. Work on your home.” Wow! I have to be honest with you…I felt relief when I heard this. I knew that several projects in my home needed attention, but I was unsure how God wanted me to spend my time. In this article, we will go over Scriptures covering order, rest, and health.

Focus on the Family recently issued an article on the subject of self care. Rob Jackson, a licensed professional counselor, said, “Self-care is an act of stewardship, or caring well for the life God has given you. It can involve caring for your physical health, your mental health or your spiritual health.”

Once I started growing in my faith in Jesus, a desire to serve Him and tell everyone about Him developed, and I wanted to give all of my time to Him! While this was good, I started to notice an unhealthy mindset in myself; spending time doing everyday chores was not the best use of my time. I believed I should be using all my free time to serve Him in some way. Thankfully this only lasted about 1 year and was before I had kids and was still pretty young, so I have to excuse my crazy lack of balance! I am embarrassed to admit that it had gotten to the point that I often didn’t want to go home because I knew the state of our home. Even my mom, who is pretty relaxed on cleaning standards, started dropping off house-cleaning flyers! I needed help learning how to balance my desire to serve Him and spend time on myself too.

God of Order

One day I was watching Christian speaker, Joyce Meyers, on TV and she made the comment, “how about you spend some time vacuuming!” As a young Christian, I lacked mature Christian female role models, and this information was so helpful to me! Her message gave me the permission I needed to spend time on me too. God loves us and wants us to use our time for our needs! God is a God of order. We are to be like Him in all our ways, so it’s good to spend some time regularly keeping our house and affairs in order. We all want to be good stewards of what He has given us. And this includes cleaning, maintaining, and organizing those resources.

1 Corinthians 14:40 (NIV)

⁴⁰ But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

Billy Graham had some great comments about God and order:

“The trouble with our modern thinking is that we have a conception that God is a haphazard God with no set rules of life and salvation. Ask the astronomer if God is a haphazard God. He will tell you that every star moves with precision in its celestial path. Ask the scientist if God is a haphazard God. He will tell you that His formulas and equations are fixed, and that to ignore the laws of science would be a fool’s folly. If the laws in the material realm are so fixed and exact, is it reasonable that God could afford to be haphazard in the spiritual realm, where eternal destinies of souls are at stake? Just as God has equations and rules in the material realm, God has equations and rules in the spiritual.”

God is the BEST role model, and if he keeps everything orderly, we should too! Don’t feel guilty about taking time to keep your affairs in order. We certainly do not want our home to become an idol, but it is healthy to spend some time tending to it!

Thank you, Lord, for this home. Everything I have belongs to you anyway. Thank you for the time and ability to put it in order!

Rest and Health

Matthew 11:28 (NIV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

A couple years ago, God convicted me to step away from a few ministries where I had been serving. I had stretched myself too thin and was losing effectiveness in just about every aspect of my life…family, physical and spiritual health, homeschooling, ministry, etc. We cannot pour into people if we are empty! I didn’t give myself a margin…or any flexible space.

I waited until the commitments were completed and I let the leaders know I would not be returning to those ministries the following season. At first, I felt loss, but then great relief! As months went by, I realized that several areas of my life were bouncing back…I was not so stressed and having chest pains Wednesday nights…I was not feeling rushed and stressed homeschooling…I was able to spend more time on my health and reach a healthy weight for the first time in 15 years…I was regularly getting fed spiritually with sweet sisters in Christ…and it all came from God and following His direction for my life! If I had ignored His promptings, I would have continued to be ineffective in all that I did! I even experienced new ministry opportunities as a result!

Matthew 5:13 (NIV)

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

NOTHING will be done well if we are not refilling ourselves with God regularly. (Notice I didn’t say daily; I know how hard it can be to always get in that time.) Be consistent and intentional, making time to read your Bible and pray – it will be the best investment into your day!

Scripture tells us that Jesus regularly spent time alone with God (Matthew 14:23, Mark 6:46, Luke 6:12). If Jesus (Who by the way is perfect and IS GOD) needed to be with God, then we, broken, flawed, sinful humans, need every moment possible with God!!!

When we regularly invite God to teach us, speak to us, guide us, inspire us, it changes EVERYTHING! With His guidance, we are given the wisdom and direction on how best to use our time, finances, decisions, relationships, ministries, job, family, and more. But this time with God doesn’t happen by accident – we must intentionally set aside time regularly for our date with God!

Thank you, Lord, for this body. It’s the only one I have. Please help me to be a good steward of it!

Conclusion

It is so easy (even with COVID-19) to get busy, overwhelmed, stressed, and ineffective – maybe even all in the name of Jesus! But let God direct your day, and you will find that you will be more rested, healthy, and every aspect of your life will benefit from order and effectiveness! Get into the Scriptures today and let the God of the Universe make you the best you that you can be!

Edited by Allie Anson