I ask a lot of people who come into the program, selfish, self-centered, and messed up with these character defects, “How concerned have you been for your own life for the last couple of years?” We need to learn the wisdom of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”(Matthew 22:39) If you’re not concerned about your own life, you can’t be concerned about your neighbor simply because concern is not there. ~ McQ, Joe. The Steps We Took (p. 87). August House. Kindle Edition.

It’s not wrong to take care of yourself!
We need to love ourselves,
but that’s a far cry from arrogance.
It’s also distinct from Narcissism,
the pursuit of gratification
from vanity or egotistic admiration
of one’s idealized self image and attributes.
If you know a narcissist well,
you want to run from that model.
But Jesus assumed in the two highest commandments
that we love ourselves.
It’s the love inherent in the wisdom,
“God made me and he don’t make no junk.”
It’s the love intrinsic in believing
we were made by God and God is love!
Believing that is a perquisite for
accepting our mission.

 

 

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