“Love your neighbor as yourself”
Growing up I heard this phrase all the time. This was the “Golden Rule”.
I always told myself that I’m supposed to treat everyone better than myself. I’m supposed to put everyone in front of me and make sure their needs are met. That they’re being taken care of. That they are loved.
But that’s not what it says.
And I think many of us have misinterpreted that.
Mark 12:31 says:
"The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
But this usually interprets “Love your neighbor and hate yourself” or “Love your neighbor better than yourself” to a lot of people, and that’s not what God wants.
But how are you supposed to love your neighbor as yourself when you don’t even like yourself?
It just can’t happen.
So God has called us to do three things.
To love Him.
To love yourself.
And to love your neighbor as yourself.
You can’t love your neighbor without loving God.
You can’t love God without loving your neighbor because He says, “What you’ve done to the least of these you have done to me”
And you can’t truly love others when you don’t love yourself.
So how the heck do you love yourself?
And how the heck to do love others?
This is something that I struggle with. I’ve struggled with low self-esteem ever since I can remember. I always compared myself with other girls. I have always belittled myself. And I was never good enough. And to be honest, it’s still something I struggle with to this day. So again, how can I love my neighbor if I can’t fully love myself?
The answer is that you can’t. You can’t have grace for them or take care of them or build them up if you can’t even do that for yourself.
Living in community is difficult. I find myself getting frustrated at the littlest things that people do. I find myself saying hurtful things about the choices people make. I find myself being unhappy around people.
And I feel horrible about it.
When you get frustrated with someone and you keep it to yourself OR discuss it with other people other than the one who upset you, you’re doing two things:
- Building frustration on top of each other. Each little thing that irritates you about that person gets stacked on top of one another, and then you find yourself not even wanting to be around the person.
- You’re only hurting yourself. Not forgiving and keeping all that frustration makes you a slave to them. You can’t even think straight when you’re around them or you “write off” everything about them.
Doing this is neither loving your neighbor NOR loving yourself.
One of the many things I’ve learned since being on the World Race is that when you go to someone that’s been irritating you and has upset you and you’re open with them and you come to them IN LOVE, they tend to receive it a little better. And usually, they have similar feelings that you have or there’s something going on to make them act that way. And you usually realize they’re an actual person and have actual feelings just like you do. (I know that’s a lot of “usually”’s but sometimes this is not always the case, and that’s when you put you’re big girl/boy pants on and get over it because the person you’re talking to has some deeper issues)
The World Race is teaching me that through community you can learn to love yourself and the people around you.
My team calls me into greatness.
My team calls out with I don’t always act the nicest and say the nicest things.
My team wants to know where I’m at.
My team cares for me.
And through caring for them just like they care for me I’m going to learn to love myself.
Yea, yea. It doesn’t make too much sense but this is what’s happening to me right now.
I have to make a conscience effort every day to love them, and God helps me with that. Every day.
I’ll leave you with the quote from a Starbucks cup that’s currently my background on my laptop. It’s a quote I find surprising to be on a Starbucks cup, but it’s a reminder every time I open up my computer.
“You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.”
-Rick Warren
Author of The Purpose Driven Life
