Loving Yourself and Loving Others

“[Love] it is not self-seeking…” – 1 Corinthinans 13:5

“‘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.'” – Mark 12:30-31

Do you ever feel like there is a conflict between loving yourself and loving others? I have found that in my own life, sometimes I get a little confused about this issue. Maybe I am thinking too much about it (which I often do), but when certain situations come up, I can become perplexed about what to do!

For example, imagine that someone asks you to do something for them, but it would really not be beneficial for you or for your own health and well-being. What do you do? Do you act in “selfless love” by complying with the other person’s request, or do you take care of yourself by saying “no” to their request? I truly don’t know the answer to this question!

What does everyone think? Have you ever been in a situation like this before? What did you do and/or how did you handle it?


Photo Credit: Margot Pandone

2 thoughts on “Loving Yourself and Loving Others

  1. You CAN’T say yes to EVERY request – no matter how good the request is! But, you’re right, it is difficult to discern what to say yes or no to. If you’re struggling with how to answer someone, ask for time to reflect and pray on your answer. Lysa TerKeurst has a new book and study out on this very thing. I’ve just received several related devotional-type emails from her Proverbs 31 ministries. I’ll forward them to you. Maybe they’ll help. Love you!

    Judy

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s