Lighter Living: ConfidenceSample

Many of us know this verse by heart simply from growing up in a Christian culture. Your pastor points back to it often in the importance of loving God and loving others. Or perhaps you cling to it as a simple, clarifying point of reference when life gets complicated. “There is no greater commandment” clearly calls for emphatic highlighting and memorization.

There are two words, however, that we seem to gloss right over. Perhaps we assume that it is already taking place, or perhaps in fear that it will tilt us more toward the world’s values than toward heaven.

“As yourself.”

Mark instructs us that after our reverence and love for God, we are to match our love for others to that of ourselves. But do we really love ourselves? Do we know how to? Are we allowed to? Isn’t self-love a slippery slope into selfishness and self-absorption?

We often naturally think of ourselves first, yet loving yourself can seem distant, confusing and even wrong. Loving yourself is not simply self care. Loving yourself is propelled by what we consistently think about ourselves. In such a comparative culture on a constant quest for self-improvement, we’re far more readily shameful critics than we are loving advocates. In fact, the more critical we are of the people around us, typically the more critical we are of ourselves.

The author knew that how connected or disconnected we are from ourselves affects our ability to connect with others. Lack of self-love tips us to not only isolation and disconnect, but self absorption. Being so overcome with how poorly we feel about ourselves that we keep one of God’s most unique and powerful tools locked away. . .who we uniquely are.

Learning to love yourself and have spirit-deep confidence in who God made you is not a worldly trap. It’s a heavenly command.

• What do I think of myself, really? How do I talk to myself most often in my mind?
• What does God think of me?
• Am I assuming that what God thinks of me is the same as what I think of me?