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Practicing love for ourselves or self care is a solidly biblical concept. I'll have more to say on that in just a moment. We all need a little me time now and then. We all need to figure out what it is that charges our batteries and make sure we're prioritizing those things and doing those things often. If we don't, we risk burnout. God wants to thoroughly equip us for good works.
Crucial part of that equipping is taking care of ourselves first and then serving others.
David (00:41.678)
Welcome to the Christian Healthy Lifestyle Podcast, where I help you navigate natural health so you can stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully, and live a more purpose-driven, abundant life. I'm your host, David Sandstrom. Today we're going to be getting back into the Nine Pillars of Health series, and in this episode, we're going to be talking about pillar number three, love for ourselves. The spiritual component of health is all about loving relationships. Love for God, love for others.
And love for ourselves. If you want to hear more about the first two pillars, love for God and love for others, go back and listen to episode numbers 213 and 214. I cover those topics in those two episodes. So self-love is the third piece of the spiritual component of health, and that's what I want to address today. I'm going to start out by explaining why self-love is not selfish. In fact, it's the most loving thing we can do.
We're going talk about Sabbath rest, and then I'm going to move on to some foundational understandings about the intrinsic value of each and every human being. I want to give you a few reasons why you should care more about yourself and help you understand that self-love is worth pursuing. If something has great value, it should be nurtured and cared for. That applies to self-care. Then I'm going to give you some of my specific recommendations for loving ourselves well.
Let's start off by saying something regular listeners out the show are gonna be very familiar with, but for for the benefit of those that may be new, the foundation of the Christian healthy lifestyle is that we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind, and body. When we live our lives in harmony with God's created order, things tend to work out better for us. When we're out of alignment with God's principles, the the principles he's baked into creation.
That tends to bring about undesirable consequences. Now this applies to every area of our lives, but on this podcast, we focus on better health outcomes. So this concept of loving ourselves well is part of God's design for every human being. The foundational verse for the spiritual component of health is Matthew chapter 22, verses 36 through 40. Here's what it has to say. Teacher
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What is the greatest commandment of the law? And he said to him, You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it you should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Now Jesus is a master at bottom lining us, and this is one of those examples. The law and the prophets is
Is an Old Testament way of referring to the Bible. So Jesus is saying, I'm going to give you the Bible in a nutshell. Love God, love others, and don't forget to love yourself in the process. Most of the teaching I've heard over the years in this passage only covers the first two commandments: to love God and love others. But we've got to be careful not to miss the last part of that phrase. We should love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Practicing love for ourselves or self care is a solidly biblical concept. I'll have more to say on that in just a moment. We all need a little me time now and then. We all need to figure out what it is that charges our batteries and make sure we're prioritizing those things and doing those things often. If we don't, we risk burnout. Of course, we're designed to be connected to God, so everyone should be spending regular time studying God's word and in prayer.
Jesus said in John 15 5, I'm the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. If a branch is cut off from the vine, it withers and dies. If we want to maximize our health potential, we need to stay connected to the source of life, and that is Jesus Christ God. Our spirit, mind, and body need constant renewal. We're instructed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that's Ephesians 5 18.
That's because we leak. On a mental-emotional level, when we sleep, our brains are busy creating new neural pathways to help us learn new skills and memorize information. On a physical level, our bodily cells are constantly being repaired or replaced. Our bodies make 200 million new red blood cells every minute. The lining of our gut gets completely replaced every three to five days.
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Loving ourselves well is to embrace lifestyle habits that create an environment where all this renewal and repair can take place efficiently. Our bodies are durable, but all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That's why God instituted the Sabbath rest. God tells us in the fourth commandment in Exodus chapter twenty verses eight through ten. Six days you labor and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. The Sabbath rest is part of God's natural design. And God gave us an example to follow. After he finished creating the universe, he rested on the seventh day. That's not because he was tired and he needed a break. It's because he wanted to give us an example of his created order, the way things are designed to work.
And you know, the Sabbath rest even applies to the earth itself. In Leviticus chapter twenty five, verses four and five we see this. But during the seventh year your land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard, your harvest aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather, the land shall have a sabbatical year. When it comes to farming,
If the land isn't given a chance to rest and recuperate, the nutrients in the soil will become depleted and the soil won't produce crops as efficiently as it could, and the food it produces, the produce, won't be as nutritious as it should be. You see, this cycle of work and rest, this ebb and flow is baked into creation. We don't have to observe the Sabbath, but if we ignore this part of our natural design, we will suffer harm.
will be on the road to burnout. You see, in our society, we're conditioned to believe that the nose to the grindstone attitude of burning the candle on both ends is more productive. That's not true. It's a lie. We're actually more productive when we regularly recharge our batteries. That's why God gave us the Sabbath rest. A study published in the Harvard Business Review called Making Time Off Predictable.
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Looked at high pressure management consultants at Boston Consulting Group. One group was required to take a strict, uninterrupted, off the grid period of rest each week. No work, no emails, no phones, and the control group maintained their twenty four seven availability. The results were pretty impressive. Consultants who took regular forced Sabbath style time off were more productive and delivered higher quality work to clients than those who worked continuously.
Job satisfaction improved. 59% of the rest observers reported higher job satisfaction versus 26% of the non-rest group. Also, team collaboration significantly improved in the rested group. There's a lot of studies that demonstrate that taking one day off in seven increases productivity, lowers burnout rates, enhances job satisfaction, lowers anxiety and stress levels, and will actually extend your lifespan.
I'd call that a major health enhancing activity, wouldn't you? And how much does it cost? Nothing. It's a decision we can make. Once again, we see modern science catching up with what the Bible's been teaching for thousands of years. It's good to practice one day off in seven. Rest and recuperation is part of our natural design, so we actually need it daily, not just weekly. We see Jesus modeling this behavior over and over again in the Gospels.
In Luke chapter five verse sixteen we see this, but Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. In Luke chapter twenty two, verse twenty nine we see this. And he came and went out as was his habit to the Mount of Olives. Jesus would often get up early before sunrise to slip out to a solitary place and pray. So yes,
The world may think that we're being selfish by staying so committed to self care or this practice of self love, but that's another lie. Self care or self love is not selfish. It's actually the most loving thing we can do because we can't give what we don't have.
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If we're so spent that when we get home from work, all we can do in the evening is sit on the couch and vegetate in front of the television, then we're not in any position to serve others well. We talked in episode number fourteen about love for others. We can't serve others well if we've got nothing to give. Here's the trouble. Life is hard, and sometimes serving imperfect people is really hard. So if we
In order to be effective in our service to others, we're going to need all the spiritual strength, mental emotional fortitude, and physical vitality we can get. In our service to others, God wants us to act like a reservoir. A reservoir is filled with water from rivers and streams, and when the basin is full, water spills over the top. That way the reservoir can give its water away without being depleted itself.
That's the way love for others is supposed to work. We're supposed to be so filled and animated with the love of God that that love spills out in the form of service to others and we're not depleted ourselves in the process. Without loving ourselves well, we can't do that. We've got to take care of ourselves first. We've got to regularly recharge our own batteries, otherwise we've got nothing left to give. Ephesians two ten says.
We were created for good works that God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them. And then we see in first Timothy chapter three verse seventeen, may the man or woman of God be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. God wants to thoroughly equip us for good works. A crucial part of that equipping is taking care of ourselves first and then serving others. Now this one is near and dear to my heart.
If you've ever flown on an airliner, you've heard an announcement that goes something like this. In the event of a changing cabin pressure, oxygen mass above your seat will drop. Pull the mask to the full center of the tubing and place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. Don't worry if the bag doesn't fully inflate, oxygen is flowing. Now here's the important part. If you're traveling with a child or someone who needs assistance, put on your mask first and then assist the child.
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Why do they tell you to put on your mask first? Because at 35,000 feet, your time of useful consciousness is about 30 seconds. If you don't get your mask on quickly, you'll pass out, and an unconscious person is of no use to anyone. The same is true with our health and well-being. We've got to take care of ourselves first, or we'll be of little use to anyone else. Are you beginning to see how important this is? Self-care or self-love is not selfish.
It's the most selfless thing we can do. It's the most loving thing we can do. Jesus said in John chapter thirteen, verse thirty four, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. The love Jesus is referring to is agape love, the others focused servant kind of love. We're in much better positions to fulfill that command to love others well than
When we're a reservoir and not a dried upstream. God's design is that we take care of ourselves first so that we have more than enough energy, motivation, and capacity to give to others. So here's the big point I'm trying to make here. In order to serve others effectively, in order to love others well, we've got to first start with loving ourselves well because we can't give what we don't have. We can't pour water from an empty pitcher.
We live in a broken, fallen world and there's a lot of hurting people out there. If we're gonna serve others effectively, we're gonna need all the spiritual strength, mental emotional fortitude, and physical vitality we can get. That understanding is key to loving others well. So this brings me to my first piece of advice when it comes to loving ourselves well. The first thing I recommend we do is take ownership over our personal domain.
The author James Clear said in his powerful book Atomic Habits, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination. I can relate to that phrase because as an airline pilot, I can tell you that we're constantly making small course corrections. On any flight, we're going to experience constantly changing wind direction and velocity. And those winds will blow us off course if we don't correct for it. If we don't make frequent small corrections, we could end up way off course.
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On a flight from, let's say, Atlanta to Seattle, being just one degree off course could cause the plane to miss the airport entirely by about forty miles. If the course were one degree to the left or to the south, instead of lining up with the runway in Seattle, we'd end up crashing into Mount Rainier about forty miles to the south of SeaTac. In actuality, we course correct much more than one degree many times throughout the flight. In the same fashion,
When it comes to our health outcomes, small course corrections to our lifestyles over the span of several decades will add up to totally different results. But making changes that stick is not easy. And realigning our belief systems to love ourselves well can be difficult. Now, what I'm about to share may seem unrelated to self love, but it isn't. It's crucial to our understanding of loving ourselves well. We have an enemy, Satan.
He's the father of lies and he frequently attacks our identity. I want to share this because there's a lot of self-loathing or self-hatred out there masquerading his humility. Most of us say things to ourselves in our minds that we would never say to another person. Things like I'm so stupid, I'm such a loser, I'm always screwing things up, I'm a bad mom, I'm a lousy wife or husband, I'll never amount to anything.
Let's be honest, we've all been there. Those thoughts are not based on reality. Those are lies from the pit of hell. Understand, every human being has intrinsic value and is worth loving. God is madly in love with you. He's madly in love with me. He's crazy in love with every human being. When we examine the scriptures about God's love for us and the intrinsic value of all human beings,
It almost sounds too good to be true, but here's just a small sampling of what the Bible says about human dignity and self worth. The foundation of what it is to be human is rooted in the fact that we're created in God's image. Genesis 1 27 says, So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. We're chips off the old block, so to speak.
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We're made in the image of this God that spoke the universe into existence and holds it all together. That alone tells us that we have great value. Psalm chapter 8, verses 4 and 5. What is mankind that you are mindful of them? Human beings that you care for them, you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. When you think about your self worth,
Do you picture yourself as a king or a queen sitting on a throne? That's the way God sees us. Psalm 139, verses thirteen and fourteen. For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. You know, they say a little bit of science will pull you away from God, but a lot of science will bring you back.
If you study anatomy and physiology the way I have in my naturopathic doctor program, you'll see that the complexity of the human body will absolutely take your breath away. Ephesians 2 10 says, For we are God's handiwork or his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. We are God's masterpieces.
The Mona Lisa is a masterpiece. I've seen the Mona Lisa close up. It's in the Louvre in Paris, France. It's a marvelous painting. But when you actually stand in front of it, it's actually quite unimpressive. It's surprisingly small, and it's only created by the human hand. You know, airline pilots have an office with a view. Flying jet airliners for the last 40 years, I've had a chance to see nature the way few people have.
Many artists have tried to capture the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset, but just like the Mona Lisa, an artist's brush can only go so far. When God paints a beautiful sunrise in the sky, it's as if God says to the artist, step aside, I'll take it from here. And he proceeds to create a real masterpiece that touches the Earth's surface and extends upward into space and spans hundreds of miles across.
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Some of the sunrises and sunsets I've seen are truly awe inspiring, and they speak to me as if God is saying I love you this much. And the word of God declares that we are his masterpieces. And when God makes a masterpiece, he don't make junk. And then there's Matthew ten verses twenty nine to thirty one. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your father's care.
So don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. Or how about Luke twelve seven? Indeed, the very hairs on your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. In Deuteronomy 32 10 we see this. Moses is describing God's protective devotion to Israel during the wilderness journey. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him.
He guarded him as the apple of his eye. He's referring to the nation of Israel, which is a metaphor for the entire human race. Do you believe you're the apple of God's eye? Have you ever thought of it that way? God collects our tears in a bottle. Psalm fifty six eight. You have taken account of my wanderings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
And then of course there's Ephesians chapter two verses seventeen through nineteen. This is just amazing. And that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Paul's not talking about literal dimensions here. He's talking about something far more significant.
He's using geometry, something we can wrap our minds around, to explain something that's impossible to wrap our minds around, the dimensions of God's love for us. The width of the breath is talking about God's love is wide enough to embrace all people from every nation, background, and era, leaving no one outside the reach of his grace. Length. God's love for us is eternal and endless. Stretching backward before time began.
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And extending forward into eternity. Height. God's love lifts up to the heavenly realms, meaning it's not an earthly love, it's supernatural. Depth God's love stoops to the lowest places, reaching down into our deepest sin, brokenness, and despair to rescue us. In other words, God's love fills every aspect of our existence. And do I have to say it?
Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. That's John fifteen, thirteen. Sounds pretty incredible, doesn't it? Now someone might be saying right now, yeah, Dave, but the Bible also teaches that at the core of our being our hearts are bad. Jeremiah seventeen nine says the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it.
The unregenerated heart is desperately wicked. Once we come to Christ, we get new hearts. Ezekiel thirty six twenty six says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take your heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Isaiah fifty one ten says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. As followers of Jesus Christ, we get a heart transplant.
And our new hearts are altogether good. Yes, that's right. Your heart is good. Now, I know this is a new concept for many people, but think about Luke chapter eight, verse fifteen, where Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower and the seeds. Here's what he says. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast and bear fruit with perseverance.
So yes, it's possible to have a good heart. Let that sink in. Your heart is good. You see, the enemy has been pretty successful in getting us to believe that we're nothing more than worthless pawn scum. Just as I said earlier, there's a lot of self hatred and self loathing going on that's not rooted in truth. Now I hope by now you're beginning to see that we've been lied to. Each and every one of us has great.
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Great worth in God's sight. Yes, we still have a sin nature, and we're all works in progress as we learn to live more fully from our good hearts, but we should be clear on the distinction between human depravity and human dignity, and not disparage ourselves in the process. After we examine these verses and ponder them and chew on them for a little bit, to not love ourselves well is to essentially call God a liar.
Let's ditch the self loathing and let's take God at His word and live accordingly. Now, here's another important point when it comes to practicing a little more self love or self care. Even after we understand that our hearts are good and we've made a decision to live from our good hearts, making lasting changes is still difficult. Here's some more information I think can help. We have free will. We have the ability to make choices.
We're not just sitting on a rudderless raft floating down the river of life. We have the ability to make course corrections. The Bible says we're created to be rulers. We were created to rule over our domains. In Genesis one twenty six we see this. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and
And over the cattle and over all the earth. Let them rule. Let that sink in. Let them rule. God rules over all the universe and we're created in that great image. God created us as free will beings. We have agency. We are volitional, which means we have the capacity to use our free will to make conscious choices.
God gives each and every human being individual liberty and he'll never take that away. It's an unalienable right. No human being can separate that right from us, and God won't take it away either. God has the capacity to remove our free will, but if he did, he'd take away our humanity. If God rewired our brains to override our free will, we wouldn't be humans anymore. We'd be robots. God is not seeking robots.
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He wants lovers, and love can never be taken. It has to be given by a free will being or it's not love. Isaiah sixty two five says this, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. Referring to his bride, the church, God says this in Hosea chapter two. Therefore, I am now going to allure her to the
I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. That's why God will never remove our free will. God wants to woo us into having a love relationship with him. He lavishes us with his loving kindness, and he wants us to choose him and love him back. So our agency is
Our capacity to make free will choices is part of being human, and along with that capacity to choose comes responsibility. In order to love ourselves well, we have to take ownership of our choices. We've got to accept the fact that we have a personal domain and God expects us to rule over it. Our personal domain starts with our beliefs and our thoughts. Now, again, I'm gonna have a lot more to say on this on pillars numbers four, five, and six.
Yeah on when we talk about the mind. But for now, understand that we have the capacity to make free will choices, and God expects each of us to exercise our agency, to use our volition to choose well. There's a passage in the book of Isaiah, chapter one, verses eighteen through twenty regarding making choices and the consequences of those choices. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Of course, there's some symbolic language here, but we're clearly admonished to use our power of reason. If we make the reasonable choice and do things God's way, we eat the best of the land.
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Things go well for us. But if we continue in our rebellion, we will be devoured by the sword. Things don't go well for us. Now, this is not an absolute. This teaching is a principle, a predictable outcome to making wise or foolish choices. Now I have to say this. Being devoured by the sword doesn't mean God is out to get us if we mess up. He's not
Wait hanging out in the clouds or waiting to send lightning bolts our way if we if we don't obey his rules. This passage is speaking about the consequences of living our lives out of alignment with God's created order. When our lives are out of harmony with the way God created reality to work, there are unpleasant consequences that will naturally follow those decisions. If I put a plastic bag over my head and tape it around my neck,
I would be out of alignment with God's law of respiration, and it wouldn't be long before I suffocate and die. That's not God punishing me for breaking one of his rules. It's the natural consequence of being out of alignment with the law of respiration. I get now I'm getting a little sidetracked here. So God created us to rule, and he expects us to rule over our personal domain, our sphere of influence. So what does this look like in practical terms?
We need to accept ownership for our choices. God wants us to make wise choices over the things that we have control over. Of course, this includes our thought lives. Again, I'm gonna have more to say in this in future episodes. But for now, understand that we'll have trouble making any meaningful progress on changing lifestyle habits if we're not accepting responsibility for ruling over our personal domain. Part of ruling over our personal domain is
Is being self-assertive at times. We need to be able to speak up for ourselves without being rude or offensive, but with kindness share the truth in love. For many of us, this means being able to say no to requests for time or money without feeling guilty. Time is our most precious resource. We can make more money, but we can't make more time. That means every time we say yes to something that requires our time.
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We're saying no to everything else we could have done with that time. We need to count the cost and choose wisely before we commit our time. Each of us has all the time in the world. We can't make any more of it, so we need to steward our time well. If we're too busy to accomplish everything in our calendars, then we've got to unload our to-do list. We're the ones in charge, and it's up to us to make the choice to create some margin.
Another thing to remember is our domain doesn't consist of the entire world. Our domain is far more limited than that. We need to understand that we have limits. There's some things that we can control, and there's a lot of things we can't. Many of us are way too concerned about things we have no control over. I am powerless to do anything about the price of gas. I'm powerless to do anything about how well the stock market is performing. So
Why spend time ruminating on those things? We should control the controllables and sometimes practice some benevolent detachment. By that I mean we were never designed to take on the burdens of the whole world. Sure, pray for the people that are affected by the natural disasters, maybe even send some money to a quality organization that's in a position to make a difference. But that's where my sphere of influence ends. After we've done what we can,
And that's usually pray for the hurting people around the globe. We've got to let it go. We've got to practice some benevolent detachment. If we don't, we'll be taking on stress that we were never designed to bear, and it'll be detrimental to our pursuit of building health margin. For me, that meant cutting way back on how much news I consume. I used to be a news junkie. Considering what I'm talking about here.
I chose to cut way back on my news consumption. I virtually stopped watching television news programs altogether, and now I get my news from an app on my phone. That way I get to choose the articles I want to read instead of allowing someone else to choose what I consume. For me, that was part of ruling over my personal domain. So focus on the things we can change, pray for the things we cannot. Does that sound a little familiar?
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It's the serenity prayer. The serenity prayer is appropriate here. An American theologian and philosopher Reinhold Nuber first penned this prayer in the nineteen thirties to use in his preaching, and it's since been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous as a tool for change. It goes like this. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. That's pretty much what I'm talking about here.
We need to lay all our concerns at the foot of the cross, take responsibility for our thoughts and actions, and turn the rest over to God. He can handle those things we cannot. The next thing I recommend is practice living with plenty of margin. Living without margin in our lives is stress producing. I highly recommend that we all build in health margin into our lives. In aviation, we operate with a safety margin. As airline pilots, we have
We take measures to make sure we've got room to absorb small mistakes and still operate the flight safely. The same is true with our health. We should be striving to have health margin. We should be enjoying more than enough spiritual strength, mental emotional fortitude, and physical vitality than the minimum we need to get through our days. The best time to build health is when we're feeling well. Sadly,
Most people need to experience a health crisis before they're ready to make any meaningful changes to their lifestyles to improve their health. As scary as the COVID pandemic was, for most people, a COVID infection was not fatal. The vast majority of the people that died during the pandemic had multiple comorbidities, which means they had other complicating issues that reduced their health margin, and COVID was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
They didn't die from COVID, they died with it. Some of the most common comorbidities that compromise people's health margin during the pandemic were obesity, type 2 diabetes, renal or kidney failure, and breathing issues like COPD and emphysema. Those comorbidities compromise their health margin and it proved fatal. Lord willing, we won't see another pandemic anytime soon.
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So life can and will throw us some curveballs in the form of illness or accidents. We need to be prepared. The best time to build health margin is when we're feeling well, not after we get sick. When it comes to finances, choose to live well below your means. Living paycheck to paycheck limits our options and introduces a great deal of stress. We should all be building some padding into our schedules. We should leave some white space in our calendars. I suggest
If you have to go somewhere, leave ten or fifteen minutes earlier than you think you have to to get to that event. You'd be surprised how much peace that can bring when you run into some unexpected traffic while you're while you're driving. Not only that, we need fun and recreation. Do you hear the word recreate in recreation? Do you enjoy going to the gym or a certain sport? Then do it often. Do you enjoy having lunch with a friend? Then do it often.
Maybe you enjoy reading a good book, then do it often. Do you enjoy preparing a nutritious home cooked meal? Then do it often. You fill in the blank. What we choose to do doesn't matter as much as giving ourselves permission to take a mini guilt-free vacation and enjoy that time on a regular basis. It's part of our God given natural design.
God knew that we'd be tempted by this nose to the grindstone lifestyle. So he created laws for the Jewish nation to observe holidays. In the Old Testament law, we not only see the Sabbath rest once a week, but we see the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of the Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and many more mandated holidays and celebrations. So God says it's against the law not to do this because it's that important. So
Let's not treat these opportunities as burdensome. Again, when we participate in leisure activities, we need to give ourselves permission to let go of work concerns and focus on refreshment, renewal, connectedness with God, and the ones we love. We'll be in better positions to serve others well and perform better at our work when we do. Okay, I know that was a mouthful. That was a lot to throw at you on a single episode.
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So let's do a little summary here. In order to love ourselves well, we've first got to understand that self care is not selfish. It's actually the most loving thing we can do because we can't give what we don't have. We do well to observe the Sabbath rest, do all your work in six days, and take one day in seven where you simply relax and refresh. We've got to hang on to the idea that God's love for us is greater than we can fathom.
We've got to accept what God says about us and take it at face value. Every human being has great worth and we're all precious in his sight. For many of us, that means letting go of the self loathing and accept what God says about us and live accordingly. As followers of Jesus Christ, our hearts are good, and we should be clear on the distinction between human depravity and human dignity and not disparage ourselves in the process.
God created us to rule and he expects us to rule over our personal domains. That means we have agency or free will. That quality is an unalienable right given to us by God and no one can take it away from us. We should be seeking out quality leisure activities and participating in
We should be seeking out quality leisure activities and participating in them often, guilt-free. We've got to recharge our batteries on a regular basis. It's part of our God-given natural design. Well, that's all I've got for now. If you're enjoying this podcast, would you tell a friend about it? Naturalistic health from a biblical perspective is hard to come by. And if you share this with a like-minded friend, I believe they'll thank you for it. That's it for now.
Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. Go out there and live abundantly. I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.
