Love yourself

Perhaps one of the most difficult things is to love yourself. God loves us – no problem! We love our children, our partners, maybe good friends, we love parents, all in their own and special way. To love others – no problem! Many do so. But one or one you blank out: Yourself.

To be able to love others but not love yourself, however, is not possible. It looks like it works, that you can love, but is like hiding your own hurts. Therefore, love is given, but in anticipation of redemption by the other. Such love will be exhausted. It does not have a transformative effect, but causes dependency. This kind of passion is what creates suffering. The partner is instrumentalized for pain management, used as a source of soothing one’s own pain. This is not a fulfilling kind of relationship and it cannot become one.

The central question is: Can I love myself as I am, with all my shortcomings and merits, with all my fears and joys, with my failures and the failures of others towards me? Can I leave all pious platitudes behind and honestly look at my life, myself, and my fears and hopes, address them, and transform them through loving engagement?

Deception

Those who do not love themselves suffer. Others cannot erase this felt gap, the pain, the felt inferiority, the not being able to suffice, the painful imperfection of one’s existence. Those who do not love themselves cannot enter into equal and fulfilling relationships, choose the wrong relationships again and again, repeat the old patterns, speak of “love’s labor in vain” or retreat into relationshiplessness.

If we project our fears or hopes onto another, then we are merely triggering a deception. Relationships are lived in the hope that the other will heal me, meet me, touch me, liberate me, save me. However, this does not work. I have to take responsibility for my own life and for my own feelings. Only when I am really free, I can perceive and respond to the fulfilling counterpart in this freedom. Only when I am truly free can I live out both my humanity and my faith in this world.

Am I ready to perceive myself, to go my own way with myself without deception? Do I dare to stop and attend to my own needs, to let myself be transformed, to gain a new perspective? Can I also express my fears and mistakes in front of my partner, in front of my friends, if this is necessary and helpful? Can I set myself apart? Am I noticeable, to myself, to others?

Finding your way back to yourself is not a luxury, but a necessity. One can either stay on the run or look at oneself, meet oneself anew, look one’s fears anew in the eye, be transformed, start anew.

God is love

John writes: “God is love” (1Jn 4:16). This is one of the central statements of the Bible. Likewise, it is testified that God loves the world (and not just a few on it, John 3:16). Paul writes to the church that God “in love predestined us for himself” (Eph. 1:5). If we can know anything about God, it is that His essence is love. This message is stunning and liberating. It is this love (Gr. agape) that loves selflessly, without reservations. It is neither a pious wish nor a service that we have to compensate with a performance, nor is it an empty claim. God’s love is given because this is His nature.

Whatever happens, in our lives and in this world, with everything that is also written about God’s action, that happens out of this love. That is why it is said that God created the universe in the Son of His love and sustains it through Him (Col 1:13-17). Love is the supporting element in this world, even if this is not always immediately visible. God’s love has a goal in mind, is working toward something. This love works in time. From this can come a confidence.

Paul sums up the joyful confidence:

“What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? … For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Rom 8:35-39

But it is not that simple

But… Isn’t that a bit woolly now, this love of God? Again and again I get the impression that with many believers something is covered up with the love of God where one should actually look. While God’s love is true and a great good, it should not serve as an excuse for us to avoid real life issues.

So if I only talk about the love of God, something else is lost, namely the reference to one’s own life and to one’s very own life questions. John writes, “God is love. But something else immediately precedes this:

“He who does not love has not known God, for God is love.”
1Joh 4,8

Those who do not love themselves have not known God. Who does not love! Only those who love see and stand in line with God’s nature and work. Thus, Paul writes that only “faith that works through love can do anything” (Gal 5:6). Love always becomes an activity. Love must work because that is the nature of love.

By this you can see God’s work and also liberated life that is loved. It is about unconditional, holistic loving without any expectations. If we do not love, then something is wrong. Then we should look.

In life, not everything is pious and can only be packaged in Bible texts. It does take a healthy amount of knowledge, but not just Bible knowledge. It also needs self-knowledge and an openness to life. We have life issues that are so urgent that they deserve to be made the main topic – until we solve them. Hide-and-seek games behind Bible texts or pious self-deception have no place there. To love requires a listening ear, a seeing eye (Prov. 20:12), and a broad heart (2 Cor. 6:11-13).

Only then does it start.

In the image of God

Man is created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27; Jas 3:9). Jesus is said to be the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15 cf. 2 Cor 4:4). The Son is also “the radiance of His glory and the imprint of His being” (Heb. 1:2).

Am I going too far if I now recognize the essence of God, this love of God, also as a function or characteristic of the human being? Are we not designed with God’s love in mind? Don’t we want to be loved in a very real way ourselves? And conversely, doesn’t our urge to live also seek to love ourselves? Perhaps this love is not always palpable, perhaps our need for love is not satisfied, but do we recognize the need as part of our self, our humanity?

Love your neighbor as yourself

What helpful thoughts about this can be found in the Bible? Already in the books of Moses it says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (3Mo 19,18). But I cannot love my neighbor, including my partner, my children, my friends, and whoever else, if I cannot love myself.

In the New Testament, this idea is taken up again. A Jew from the group of Pharisees once asked Jesus:

“Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?” But he answered him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. But the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself! On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Mt 22:36-40, cf. Deut 6:5 and Deut 19:18.

The apostle Paul writes similarly:

“For the whole law is fulfilled in the one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself!”
Gal 5:14

You shall … love others as yourself! Voilà! There you have it, unmistakable and clear. It takes a healthy love of self. This does not mean narcissism and unfruitful ego-centeredness, but an acceptance of one’s own humanity.

Say yes to yourself

What can we think of in this? Maybe at things like this: Accepting yourself as you are. Realize that you are not alone on the road. Humility and a sense of reality. Taking responsibility for one’s own life, without any diversionary tactics or games of hide and seek. Can we be loving and gracious with ourselves? Living out truthfulness is the concern. Being human, but also being able to stand in the grace of God. Do not dwell on the past. Saying goodbye when something doesn’t go on. Stand by yourself. Being able to set yourself apart, being careful with yourself.

Loving yourself is not in a vacuum, but it is “love your neighbor as yourself”. This is a two-way activity. Both sides are equally involved, the counterpart and myself. Loving your neighbor is on a par with loving yourself. There’s an interaction. As a rule, it is not static, but alive. To love is an activity, an urging of the heart. Just as Paul might write elsewhere “For the love of Christ compels us” (2 Cor. 5:14). That’s where he takes action. Something happens there, because it is loved and lived.

In the letter to the Ephesians there are several prayers of Paul. In chapter 3, he prays that God will

“Grant it to you – according to the riches of His glory – to become steadfast in the inner man through His Spirit in power, so that Christ may dwell fully in your hearts through faith, and you, rooted and grounded in love, may grow strong to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height (to know also the love of the Christ that surpasses all knowledge), that you may be completed to the entire perfection of God.”
Eph 3:14-19

With these words Paul aims at a completion of the believers. This completes what is still missing. It gets “crowded”. This happens, as the apostle describes it here, because of concrete love. He speaks of the love of the Christ that works toward this goal. One realization that we may take with us is this: We can and may be rooted and founded in love. Therein lies the further development. Do I recognize the purpose of God? Do I see according to Paul’s word that each of us, that I myself am included in this goal? Completion of God, it is called, which wants to take shape in us.

Now dare to do what God has been doing for a long time: loving you.

“Love yourself” and let God finish with you and me, as well as with this world. Love yourself, because only that is the recognition of God’s love. The foundation was laid. Now dare to do what God has been doing for a long time: loving you.

Un-Christian or Original Christian?

At the end of this article, I hope that one thing has become clear: loving oneself is not un-Christian, but original Christianity. It is a prerequisite for a healthy faith. If you are not in that place yet, it can be worked on. Take comfort – almost all people feel this way. We are in a process that is sustained by God’s love and grace and crowned by peace.