I recently had a revelation when reading in Mark 12 where Jesus is teaching his followers about the most important of all of the commandments. Mark reads:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31
First and foremost, we are made to love God with all that we are; heart, soul, mind, and strength. The Message translation reads, “love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy”. I find the practice of yoga to be beneficial in the Christian life because it addresses the person as a whole: body, mind and spirit. Yoga, Sanskrit for union, serves to unite the mind with the body in the quest to unite the soul to God. For the follower of Christ, we are reminded that we have been united with God through Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit lives in us. Ultimately, we are to love God with all of our being, and we can only love God as much as we have received his love for us. This is the first step and most important step in learning to love well.
However, it is the follow up to this most important commandment that recently caught my attention. It states that we are to “love our neighbor AS we love ourselves” (emphasis mine). You see, there is an underlying assumption in this directive that we know how to love ourselves well; thus, by knowing how to love ourselves well, we will know how to love others well. Do you hear the relationship?
Unfortunately, I believe that most of us are confused by what it means to love ourselves well. We are either caught up in: the pride of who we think we are; the shame of who we wished we could be; or the guilt of who others want us to be. But can we love ourselves because God loves us? Is that enough? The truth is, when we learn to love ourselves rightly, because God loves us, we will be better able to love others!
We are to meant live in the balance, the tension, if you will, between loving ourselves and loving others. For some, it is easier to love others than it is to love themselves; others are prone to love themselves better than they love others. It would do us all well to examine our hearts, honestly, and become familiar with our individual leanings. Jesus is clear, we are not to love ourselves more than others; and likewise, we are not to love others more than ourselves, we are to love others AS we love ourselves.
That brings me to this New Year. Many new people will be finding their way into the gym where I work in an attempt to fulfill the most commonly made (and broken) resolution in the United States- to lose weight. Unfortunately, most will not carry their new found health habits beyond March.
But what if we reframed our resolutions this year to look differently? What if we took the opportunity to love ourselves better; and examined how we might love others as we are loving ourselves?
Instead of dieting, what if we began eating to nourish our bodies, and what if we desired that others would be able to eat to nourish their bodies?
Loving ourselves as we love others.
Instead trying to lose weight, what if we began to care for and steward our bodies as God’s handiwork, his masterpiece, and what if we desired that others would know and care for their bodies as God’s masterpiece?
Loving ourselves as we love others.
Instead of viewing our bodies as an object to be manipulated, what if we chose healthy habits for our bodies and our minds knowing that we are God’s dwelling place on earth-God’s temple- and what if we desired that others would know and love their bodies because because God lives in them ? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
Loving ourselves as we love others.
The list could (and does) go on for ever. Go ahead and try it… Desiring good things for the right reasons and pursuing them for ourselves as well as for others.
It is important to note that this “loving” works both ways. I have sometimes found myself operating out of “Christian guilt”, after all Jesus gave his life for me, shouldn’t I give my life for others? While this is true, the concept needs to be held within the tension of LOVE.
For me, this has looked something like:
- Looking for the best in others; as I look for the best in myself.
- Caring of others; as I care for myself.
- Protecting others; as I protect myself.
- Trusting in others; as I trust in myself.
- Helping others; as I help myself.
- Giving to others; as I give to myself.
- Being truthful with others; as I am truthful with myself.
- Praying for others; as I pray for myself.
- Wanting for others; as I want for myself.
I am reminded of the relationship within the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit each acting to glorify the other; loving each other in sacrifice and humility. What would happen if mankind learned to love like this? I imagine this is why Jesus declared these two commandments to be the more important than any other, and I am inclined to think that this what Jesus had in mind when he taught us to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
