Who Cares About Self-Care

(0:00 - 0:48) Real life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Is your self-care narcissistic or is your self-care needed? Are we saying that I need to take care of myself at the expense of others? Isn't that amazing to think about? Kind of freaky, right? I don't care if you're 10 or 110. The answer is still the same. The greatest self-care that you can give yourself is to experience God in an ever-deepening way. Here's the reason why that's important, everyone. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to Jackhibbs.com slash podcast. (0:49 - 1:04) Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. (1:05 - 6:57) Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Hey, everybody. The term self-care is a big deal that's happening today. However, it's not a new deal. Self-care is something that the young generation is mentioning and speaking of, and I get it. You want to know why I get it? Even though I'm in my late 60s, the term and the idea and the concept of self-care, remember this, the Bible says that there's nothing new under the sun. Terminologies change when a generation is seeking an answer regarding a life human issue. And for all of human life, we have had what I'll say is the self-care issues. Now, let's be honest. There is a good aspect to taking care of yourself, to thinking about self, to consider what's to be done about self-care. There is a good way to look at that. And I don't want you to be some sort of a Christian that, well, the Bible says to avoid self. Of course it does. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But the reality is we are self. We are that person. How we deal with self is all important. So today a young generation is battling with, um, Hey, I need self-care, but I want you, if you're 25 or 65, the fact, and this is hard for some people to understand. I certainly would not have understood this nor believed it. If somebody would have told me at the age of 28, that at the age of 68, the human side of our needs and thoughts are the same, are the same. You say, Jack, Jack, I'm a young person. You sound like my parents or my grandparents. Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm hearing it. I sympathize with you. Here's the deal. Um, I want to, I want to, uh, pick on a biblical character so that you and I might understand ourselves better in light of God's word. Okay. So what I think you probably know by now that I'm really, really super hypersensitive against, hypersensitive to, I should say, um, theoretical faith. I'm not interested in theoretical faith. I think that's one of the reasons why good, bad, or ugly. I gravitate toward a guy that was somewhat of a mystic in some ways. I mean that in a good way. But that would be A.W. Tozer. He believed in the reality of experiencing God, but he didn't get weird. Um, having said that, when we talk about self-care, the greatest self-care that you can give yourself is to experience God in an ever deepening way. And here's the reason why that's important, everyone, is because if we're really concerned about, um, having our needs met, what does that mean? Well, according to the Bible, and I'm speaking predominantly to a biblical audience right now, um, to have my needs met, I need to first of all, analyze are my needs biblically sound? Because here I am at 68 years of age and, um, I've been a Christian for 49 years and yet still to this day, I battle and I have to discern and make a choice between the difference of my self-care versus what I want versus what is that which needs to be done by me, spoken by me, done by me, that is Christ-like. So here's where the bifurcation, the split, and we have to have this split. This is where this division must come. And that is this. When a generation says, I need, um, let me think back. I need me time. Remember that one, everybody from the 90s, maybe early 2000s? Um, I need me time. Um, way, way back, uh, a burger company, I forget who it was. Maybe it was Burger King said something like, you need to have it your way, your way, your way. And, um, I get that. You can know you can order a burger the way that you want it. I get that. But, um, there is a fine line for us when we talk about self-care, are we saying that I need to take care of myself at the expense of others? I need to take care of what I want to do. And that's going to happen by others supplying what I want. Listen, little kids who have a narcissistic tendency, as they begin to grow up, you know, you're in a tough spot when they are narcissistic and they're kids and they vocalize that the whole, they don't say it this way, but they're saying it this way. Hey, Hey y'all, the whole world has been created for you guys to wait on me hand and foot. What I want is what I want. And I want it now. Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, grandma, grandpa's, uh, everybody jumped to my need. I want it. And I want this now. That is the foundational, uh, warnings of a narcissistic, uh, worldview mindset that if left unchecked, we'll grow up an individual that is all about self-awareness to the point where it's self, listen, self grandizement. It's all about me. (6:58 - 7:51) How does this work out for me? And then somebody comes along, maybe it's a cultural, cultural warrior, or maybe it's the trending argument of the day. And it's all about, you need more time with you. Listen, it never works right. It never goes well. If, if you focus on what you want, then you are going to wind up neglecting others. And you say, well, Jack, who cares? I don't care about other people. Actually you do. You just don't know it. You are not an isolated, um, alone type of personality that can go through life, vacant and void of other people's lives. You cannot do that. You won't do it. You cannot do it. (7:52 - 9:22) You may be somewhat of a loner, so to speak, or introvert. Um, you may find this not true. You may think I don't believe you, but it's true. So I speak in front of thousands of people every week, but I got to tell you, I really like being alone and I'm okay for days on end. I remember not all that long ago, uh, I spent, I think like six days alone and I loved it, but I can't live like that. Okay. That was like a break, right? And I needed that. I had something to accomplish and I had to, I had to do that. Having said that everybody, it's so important that you and I literally gelled with other human beings because we are social creatures and you, and you might say, well, Jack, I don't need, I don't, when I say self-care, I don't mean that, but wait to achieve self-care. Are you cutting yourself away from other people? Are you shutting the door and are you isolating yourself out of relationships that you actually need? There's a way to revitalize. There's a, there's a way to renew. The Bible tells us, for example, that those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Notice the qualifier is to wait upon the Lord. It means to sit before the Lord and to talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm going to sit right now or I'm going to read the Bible right now. Speak to me. (9:23 - 12:27) I need refreshing of my soul. This is, this is my self-care. I'm bringing myself to you, Lord, and I'm asking you to speak to me, to, to call me out, Lord, on things that are not right, or give me instructions on things that I need to do. And that's healthy and that's beautiful. But I would like to divide it up this way. Is your self-care narcissistic or is your self-care needed? When I say needed, it's not that you want it. That's more narcissistic. It's that it's needed. Meaning how do I become a better person? How do I become a closer follower of Jesus? How can I be a better husband, a better wife, a better father, a better mother? How do I become a better employer or employee? God, show me these things. And so I want to pick on this, this example, and I'm going to deliberately delay the revelation of who I'm talking about for some of you in the younger audience, because you may not, you may not stick with me. If I say this is found over here and this or there, you might say, I don't want to hear about that. But have you ever known or are you a manipulator? Meaning you're always kind of back of the mind, scheming, plotting, and it's so second nature to you that it's actually first nature now. It's like you don't even think about it, but you hear about this, you hear about that, you hear about a date, time of day, you hear about an event, you hear about a day of the week, and you're thinking, how does that work best for me? How will I come out on top regarding that? In that crowd, where do I have the best possibility of being seen the most? Those kinds of thoughts, I mean, when you hear them like this, you kind of go like, right, that's making me sick. But it's human nature. Why? Because we are prone, unchecked, we are prone to manipulate conversations and situations, which leads us to being dishonest in this way. If we are manipulators by nature, and the human nature is by nature a manipulative nature, Genesis tells us this with Adam and Eve, they were manipulating the fall. Read it later in your Bible. Manipulators are always liars. They will lie. They will either not tell you the whole truth, they'll tell you part of the truth, they'll tell you the truth up until a certain point. Manipulators are liars, because they are scheming and plotting the conversation to try to come around that somehow it's going to answer the need to be in the center of the photo. So they will manipulate by lying. Why? Because they are fixated, even if they don't know the term, on self-care. I need this for me. (12:28 - 13:56) Another thing is that they have to do is that they have to scheme, they have to plot. It sounds a lot like manipulation, but the plotting and the scheming of it is a long-term calculated plan as to how they're going to go about lying to manipulate the situation. So it starts out broad by a scheme or plot, and it's lied about until it's brought down to the tip of the funnel, and that is the act of manipulation. Think about that. To do that, the next step would be that you're very resourceful. It's amazing, like a cat always lands on its feet. People who are obsessed with self-care often become very resourceful. They learn how to use things and people at their will for their accomplishment. They know that if they do something this way, it's always going to bring about this type of a response. There's a particular podcaster that I'm thinking about right now. She's a master at it. She will do these things because she always, she already, before they turn on the cameras, she already knows what she wants the answer to be. (13:56 - 14:36) So her whole program is set up to come around to this conclusion. It's actually brilliant. It's actually a strategy that is even used in psychological warfare, but it's certainly a tactic of diplomacy. But be that as it may, you become very resourceful. Have you seen how resourceful, for example, narcissists are who are criminal in their activity? Con artists, for example, extremely resourceful, crazy resourceful. A con artist is limitless to what they're able to generate to achieve their self-care. (14:37 - 16:46) Think about that for a minute. And why does this happen? How can it happen? Because they're very, very, very self-reliant. They depend upon themselves. And listen, this is, this is a tough one, and it speaks to maybe all of us at some level. Because of disappointment, because of heartbreak, because of dashed hopes and dreams, every time that happens in our lives, if we do not process that biblically before God, talk to God about it, can I put it to you this way? I don't want to cheapen this by any means, but for those of you who are prone to going to an analyst to work it out for you or a therapist to work it out for you, some of you don't do that. Some of you go to Jim Beam. You might go to the office of Jack Daniels, if you know what I mean. And you'll deal with it that way. No, no, listen, I'm talking about what if you were to take it to the Lord instead of those externals? And you say to the Lord, Lord, I'm going to ask you to unpack my life. Why would we need to do that? Because the danger is if we do not do that, we'll become self-reliant. Notice, please notice, answer this question. Was Jesus ever in the Gospels? Was Jesus ever self-reliant? If anybody had the right to be self-reliant, it was Jesus. Was he? Nope. What did Jesus say? I'll sum it up in one statement. Not my will, Father, but thy will be done. Wow. So when we are tempted to be self-reliant, that is an indicator that we are protecting ourselves. We can't trust anybody. (16:46 - 17:30) And we would never confess this, but it's true. We don't even trust God when we become self-reliant. But here's the Achilles tendon to all of that. When we become self-reliant, because we're mere mortals and life is such a dynamic, we know that something could fall through the great. Something could fall into a hole. We may miss something here or there along the way. That causes anxiety. Anxiety is the result of us worrying about the outcome of something that it could, may possibly not go the way that I want it to go. Anxiety, anxious. (17:31 - 21:34) What does the Bible say? Be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. You see the big difference? There's the need or what's needed, or there's the narcissist. When we talk about self-care, me-time, self-time, having it my way, it's not always good. It's not always good. And in the culture today, it's not good, by and large. If you're not going to God, instead you're spending time with yourself to get answers from who? Yourself? About the decisions that you're going to make about who? What? Yourself? That is a definition of a fool, to be honest with you. Because to prevent from being foolish is to seek the wisdom of God. God is a person. God is a personality. I love how C.S. Lewis talks about how if we try to imagine God prior to the incarnation of Christ in flesh, the Logos becoming flesh, that God is more of a mind than he is anything else. Isn't that amazing to think about? Kind of freaky, right? Until you realize the Bible says God is spirit, that he's spirit. The big miracle is that God would come into this world draped in human flesh. That Christ was born into this world as a human to relate to us. Wow. That said, when you are left alone with your thoughts, it never goes well. Have you noticed that when you are not thinking about yourself, you're the happiest? Could be that you're busy at work. Could be you're on a trip, a commitment, and you're working so hard, you're sweating, you're digging holes, or you're working with that team. And life is doing great. Life's doing great because you haven't been thinking about you. And then on the way home, you start thinking about you. And by the time you get home, you're just a little creep. Why? Because you've spent time with yourself. You've analyzed and talked about everything out with yourself. And so you and yourself got together and you decided that this is where you're going to land. That's never good. And listen, when we're anxious, we think that the things that we desire will be the answer, will be the soothing balm. When we're anxious because we're self-reliant, we seek to be resourceful. We scheme about bringing something about, so we lie about the situation, the scenario. And to achieve that, we seek manipulation. And why is that the case? Because we want to pad ourselves with security blankets. Help me out here. But isn't Linus in the Charlie Brown, is Linus the guy with the blanket? I think he's the guy with the blanket. He's always walking around with the blanket. By the way, Charlie Brown and the Christmas, Charlie Brown's Christmas Carol, the legendary annual cartoon you see, the only time that Linus drops his blanket in his entire career as that character is when he sings the praises of Jesus at the birth in Luke chapter two of peanuts in the cartoon series. Did you know that? That's a very great thing for us to know. Linus drops his security blanket when he starts to praise the Lord in the cartoon Charlie Brown's Christmas. That's the answer. How do you actually really achieve self-care? Drop your blanket, lift your hand in praise, and give thanksgiving to God for what the Lord has promised you and what you do have. And listen, stuff's not the answer. (21:36 - 23:07) 40 minutes from where I'm at, 45 minutes from where I'm at right now is Hollywood, Bel Air, Brentwood, Malibu, right? Sunset and Vine, Hollywood Boulevard, all that stuff. The Hollywood Hills. You think those guys got the answer? You think those guys are content? Billionaires live there. It's no big deal. Millionaires? Millionaires like what's a, everybody's a millionaire in this town. Billionaires, you think they're happy? Why are they committing suicide? Listen, they have manipulated, they may have lied, they schemed, they were very resourceful, they were self-reliant, self-made people. They were anxious though because as they went about all of this, it may not work out. They thought getting all kinds of stuff and appeasing their desires would bring about satisfaction. And all of that they're thinking is all about self-care when it's actually them trying to get their need met and they never get it met. They just wind up becoming narcissists and they wind up becoming disillusioned, lost, and broken, and tired, and scared. And who am I talking about? I'm talking about the man Jacob in the Bible. Jacob. That was the, that's the big reveal, the secret. I would encourage you to read Genesis chapter 28, specifically around verse 16 where Jacob is doing his thing. He's all about self-care. (23:08 - 23:41) And then he goes to sleep and he lays down and he has a dream. And in that dream he witnesses God via a ladder coming down out of heaven and the angels are going up and down on this portal where the angels are going up and down from earth to heaven as God's emissaries and God's messengers. And Jacob woke up and he said, I had no idea that God was in this place. (23:42 - 25:31) Friends, listen, God is in this place. God is in your place wherever you're at. If you'll just stop right now, stop with self and say, God, if you're real, show me who you are. If you're real, I need to know this. I need to know that everything that I'm in hot pursuit of, I cannot achieve, but you can satisfy me. That it's all about Jesus Christ and seeking first the kingdom of God and all these other things shall be added to me. Not to come to you, Lord, as a Santa Claus, not to come to you, Lord, as some sort of a genie, but to come to you knowing that my character and my nature is sinful. And I am asking you God to make a meaning and a purpose from my life because I've gone about it the wrong way. Me time, alone time, guy time, girl time, I don't know what you guys call it. Self-care is the buzz among the young people. The answer is still the same. I don't care if you're 10 or 110, the answer is still the same. Seek first the kingdom of God, Matthew 6, 33, and all these other things shall be added unto you. God first in all this. Listen, we'd love to have you subscribe. You can go to the Real Life Network app, get the app and subscribe there and download that app and use it more and more. That's what we're here for, to lead you deeper, deeper in your walk with Jesus. So God bless you guys until next time. (25:35 - 25:50) This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to Jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.