In Mark 12, one of the leaders asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. He said that the first was to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your mind and all of your soul. And the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. I was thinking about this last night and I thought, if I loved my neighbor based on how I love myself or treat myself, my neighbor would be in trouble. Because honestly I’m not the best at that. I am pretty good at thinking of others, but sometimes I’m not. I think if I implement some changes I could be really good at loving my neighbor.
I think to make this better I need to slow down and carve out time for 1. God, 2. (this is super hard) myself, and 3. Others. I look at the selfless people around me that are tired and weary and I worry about them. I encourage them to take care of themselves, but neglect to do the same.
So, dear friends, I’m giving all of you amazing selfless people an assignment. Don’t worry…it’s something I will be attempting too! I challenge you in the next 7 days to spend at least 20 min a day with God. You can spend time in prayer, or reading your Bible. 20 min of your day is nothing! But this is an exercise to start some good habits. If you already spend time with Jesus every day, increase it by 20 minutes. The next challenge is to spend at least 15 minutes a day practicing self-care. This could be going for a walk, taking a nice bubble bath, exercising, or taking care of your skin…there are a lot of choices. The third challenge is to do something kind for someone else. This could be sending a card, sending a text, paying for someone else’s meal, visiting a senior citizen, watching someone’s kids, taking a meal to a family that you love, encouraging a student, or sending a teacher or a healthcare worker some appreciation.
I want to clarify something…This is by no means a call to be selfish. Just to take care of yourself. Philippians 2:3-5 says,3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
Jesus, our Savior, told us how important these things are. That is enough for me to take it seriously. I’m up for the challenge! I hope to hear from some of you if you are going to do this 7-day challenge with me!