Episode #187: God’s Encouraging Take on “Treat Yourself” Moments – Heartbreak / Give Your Heart a Break

Hey friends, it's Jen, and I hope you're ready to give your heart a bit of a break. These few minutes are set aside to just have a lighthearted moment with the Lord. The topic we're talking about today is how we treat ourselves. And if you're familiar with the TV show “Parks and Recreation,” I keep thinking of that viral meme with our favorite characters encouraging one another to “treat yourself.”

If this invitation is unfamiliar to you, they're using this phrase to encourage one another to splurge on fun purchases. And I keep thinking about that in the context of this episode because sometimes I hold out treating myself kindly for splurge days or for days where I feel like I've worked hard enough that I've earned it. Or I've gone through something hard enough that I deserve it.

And one of the things that God has been talking with me about is that treating myself kindly isn't just set aside only for a splurge day, but that I get to treat myself kindly all the time.

And that's not something that I'm naturally good at.

One of the ways he's been talking with me about this is from the greatest commandment. And in Matthew 22:39, he exhorts us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Now I used to just blow past this like, yeah, yeah, love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and love my neighbor as myself.

Love God, love other people. But there's a third part in that.

Love other people as you love yourself.

So love God, love other people, love yourself.

And this might feel simple and routine for you, but I've been a believer for decades now, and it is taking a long time for parts of that to become routine for me; that I get to love myself. And especially in times when things are heavy or hard, when circumstances are difficult or my heart needs healing, or even just the demands on my schedule feel abundant, I can start to treat myself more harshly than I would want to treat my neighbor.

I can love myself less.

I can be less kind or compassionate or caring toward myself than I would want to be toward my neighbor. And so in the series that we're in coming to God with our heartbreaks and receiving the break from the hard things;

I want to bring this topic up for us to have conversations with God about. Because I wonder what he has to say about how we're treating ourselves.

Today we're actually bringing him two questions. As you reflect on how you're treating yourself, I'm encouraging you to bring that to God and to talk with him more about it. And the first question is,

God, in this hard thing, what's something you like about how I'm treating myself?

Don't assume you're doing everything poorly. That's probably also not being kind to yourself. Ask him to tell you what some of the things are that he likes about how you're treating you.

And then the second question,

God, what's something that you want for me that's different from how I typically treat myself?

I don't want to assume for you what that is. And maybe he'll come back and say nothing, but I would guess that there's probably some things that God wants for you that you can learn from, that you could receive more from him and change how you treat yourself in the current circumstance you're in. And so I encourage you to talk more with God about that.

God, in this hard thing, what's something you like about how I'm treating myself?

And then the second question, God, what's something that you want for me that's different from how I typically treat myself?

Have a good talk.

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