74. The Number One Self-Care Solution

0:00Beppe come new, get 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Orberg. What do you need to do some serious self-care today? In fact, what's the number one thing you need to do to care for yourself? Well, we're going to find out. It's not herbal tea and it's not a scented candle and it's not a visit to the spa and it's not a massage and it's not any number of things which all might be kind of well and good. But that will require us getting kind of clear about what the self is and then what does the self need the most. And there is ancient wisdom around this great wisdom, but it will be very surprising. I think if you asked 100 people today in our day, what do you need for self-care? I think a single one of them would come up with the answer that we find in this song. So we're returning now. We're learning from the Psalmist how to be real with God, how to discover reality together with Him about ourselves and our world.

1:04One of the classics is Psalm 19. I've looked at it before, but what we're going to look at today is real nearly focused, so I got to get into it. The Psalmist starts by talking about how God has revealed himself in nature. And so you might think, well, that's the way that I would do self-care, getting the nature. That's not a bad idea. It's God's creation. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands day after day. They pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. They have no speech. They use no words. No sound is heard from them yet. Their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the ends of the world and the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It's like a bridegroom coming out of His chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. This is partly just reinforcing what's real in the world. It matters most is God. There's a little theological work going on here in the ancient world in Egypt, in Babylon, ancient Mesopotamian. The sun most often was thought of as a God. If by any chance you have seen the movie Odysseus or the Odyssey or you've read it recently,

2:10you might remember that Odysseus is crew-gotten. Big trouble because they ate the sacred horses that belonged to Helios, which was the Greek word for sun helium. And part of what the Bible is saying is no, no, no, no, no. There is one God and He is good and it ain't the sun. That's why the sun doesn't show up till the fourth day of creation. The sun rises at one end of the heavens, makes its circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of its warmth. So you might think, well, that's what I need for my soul. Get on into creation. And you might. That could be a wonderful thing. Bible talks about it quite a lot. Jesus talks about it quite a lot. But interestingly, it's not number one. Here we go. Verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. No, when we think about self, the Bible's word for self is soul. You might know the Greek word, psuké, from which we get psychology is the word that is translated soul.

3:14How different things would have been if after Freud that discipline would have been called soul-ology. Because the soul is very deep. The soul is what connects us, integrates us with ourselves and connects us with God. The soul is so deep that the soul must often talk about it. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. But here's what it says. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving or refreshing or converting the soul. What your soul, what your self needs more than anything else, even more than creation, although creation is really good, is the law of the Lord. Seriously, like have you read through the book of Leviticus lately? So must goes on. The statutes of the Lord trustworthy, making wise the sips simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure and during forever, the decrees of the Lord are firm.

4:18And all of them are righteous. They're more precious than gold than much pure gold. Sweeter than honey, honey from the honeycomb. By them, your servant is warned in keeping them as great reward. The law, the statutes, the precepts, the commands, the decrees. Isn't that stuff kind of onerous? Is not the stuff that we're freed from now that we don't have to be under law anymore? No, no, no, no, no. See, the great heart of the soul is to be integrated so that what I want, what I desire, what I work towards, what my appetites and habits are in service of, what I communicate together. Is all one, is all united so that I'm not dividing against myself. Eleanor Stump talks about this in her book, Wandering in Darkness. She notes, there's a philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, that has done a lot of work on the importance of what we will sometimes talk about as wholeheartedness. And his explanation of what does it mean to be wholehearted?

5:18It doesn't just mean to have a lot of enthusiasm, doesn't mean to be in a particular, a good mood. It involves internal integration. What is internal integration? Well, that is when my mind, my thoughts, my beliefs, my values, my conscience, my desires, my actions, my body are all harmonious or integrated. They are all in line, they are all working together. So there's a kind of a wholeness to my being. My soul is whole. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. And part of the point that Eleanor Stump writes about, and this is why the law of the Lord and the idea here is that there is such a thing as a moral reality to life.

6:19There is a kind of person that I'm called to be, and of course that's to be marked by love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and kindness and goodness. I'm called to be a certain kind of person. And in no place do we learn about that better, more clearly, more authoritatively than we do in the Bible as it is rightly and patiently understood and as we help each other with it and as a Holy Spirit guides me through it. And I don't just understand it abstractly, but it actually comes to characterize me. It actually comes to fill me. Now if that's not the case, then what happens is I am forever divided and I want to be in great shape, but I want to eat whatever I feel like eating at the same time. And I want to have other people like me, but I want to be able to use them if that can be useful for me to get what I want because I want to have what I want, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to get what I want. So then I got to deceive you and I got to make my face cause you to think that I'm really happy with you, even if I'm trying to resent you or I'm trying to figure out how might I be able to use you a little bit and in all these things what's happening is I'm being divided.

7:31My choices are divided, my desires are divided, my relationships are divided, my body is divided, I use it to fool other people. Part of what Eleanor talks about here is because God has given us a conscience because the soul is aware of what is good and what is bad, what is writing, what is wrong. It's tricky stuff, I it's above my pay grade, I won't get into it too deeply. But part of what that means is the only way to have a whole self, a whole soul, internal integration to be wholehearted is if it is around the good. If I am primarily oriented around the love of God and love of other people. And she quotes a coiness on this, this is why bad people cannot experience wholeheartedness, even if they don't suffer temporal pains in this life, health or money problems or something, they suffer spiritual pains. A coiness says, that's why Augustine says, it is the sentence you have given Lord and it is so that a disordered mind is painful in itself.

8:41And Aristotle says about bad people in ethics, their soul is in strife, this part pulls that way and that part pulls that way. And he sums it up by saying, if indeed it is this way miserable to be bad, we should with intensity flee from evil. And normally is at the case, if I am divided up with inside myself, then I cannot be deeply known to you because I don't even know myself fully. So it is parts of me that won't bad things or a war with that part of me that wants to think of myself as a good person or wants to hide from you. And so I, and this is part of why Jesus says about evil doers in the Sumer of the Mount, for example, Matthew chapter 7, depart from me, I never knew you. And I don't know what he doesn't say, you never knew me. I never knew you in order to be known by another person, I must know myself, the truth about myself so I can disclose myself when I am divided and torn and self deceived.

9:45I don't even know myself, so I cannot disclose myself. And so I cannot be known even by God, he can know about me. I cannot enter into a relationship with disclosure and closeness together with him, I never knew you. So here's where this is really simple. I want to be a wholehearted person. The soul desperately means the law, not legalism, not an arbitrary list of rules, but to know what is good, what is worth orienting my life around, to be internally integrated to be whole. So today, just take one simple piece of the law, love God to follow your heart and soul and mind strike, love your neighbor as yourself, or the food of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, or speaking the truth in love, we shall all grow up, or be patient, or be grateful.

10:48Just a single piece of the law, God, how many do it? I've told some of you, there's this wonderful chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 and Dallas, where it would very often say, man, those are words worth memorizing. So I will do that in the revisit periodically and other time it was night and I was angry at somebody that I know I should love and I've caused lots of pain by withdrawing and I was tempted to do that again. I don't struggle with that in the same way that I used to, but it's still in me. And then in the middle of the night, just those words, if I speak in the tongue of many of angels, but have not love, I'm a clinging, going, resounding symbol and then love is patient, love is kind. Does not envy does not pose that is not proud does not dishonor dishonor others, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, love does not rejoice and evil, but the lights in the truth, it always trusts, always protects, always hopes and just sing those words.

11:50I can't do that and hold on to resentment bitterness and what I know in my deepest self is just a sinful, punishing, stupid, foolish, petty, small-minded, this is me, way of treating somebody that I'm committed to loving. Thank God, God for those words. And that's part of why the Psalmist says in these words are just so deeply, deeply sure. They're more precious than gold than much pure gold. Buy them your servant is worn in keeping them. There is great reward. And their reward is not just God's going to put a little gold star in my chart. That reward is now I can become again a whole at the level of my soul. And now it's like a switch gets flipped and again I can want to be connected. And be honest and truthful might be painful words but be in a relationship that has that kind of cleanness to it as opposed to that one in which I'm a person that is really hellish.

12:58So that's what you need for soul care today. Now in addition, if it had helped you to go to the spa or light a Senate candle or drink a little herbal tea or have a massage or take a walk. Outside of nature by all means go do it. But just remember God's great gift to us is that we can actually know what a good life consists of and what a good person looks like. And I can seek to move in that direction with God's help. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. Do a little soul care today. Hey, thanks for tuning in and become new. My name is Tim. I'm part of the team at Become New and we distribute 10 to 15 minutes of teaching just like this every single weekday just to help you set your mind on the right things to get your day started.

14:00I was thinking about this teaching and the law of the Lord that it revives, restores the soul and meditating on his law day and night. It's what someone says. I would love to know what you thought of this teaching, what your takeaway was or if God was speaking to your heart more than just a video to watch and more than just John Orpurg. We believe and hope that God's spirit is speaking to you to your spiritual ears to your heart, prompting things in you. He might even bring to the surface of your thoughts as you're listening a certain phrase or sentence, an encouragement, a challenge. And we would love to know what that is. So if you are watching on YouTube, you can drop it in the comments or you can text it, email it to us. That's totally available to you. All of our contact info is in the show notes. One of the things to let you know is that not only do we do teaching every weekday, but we also meet to pray every weekday as a team to pray for this community, to pray for you wherever you are, whatever is going on in your life. And we would love to pray for you specifically because we meet and pray out loud and we also write you back a personal prayer request that an actual person writes you.

15:07So that is something that would help you. Feel free to reach out to us. It's totally for free. Just text our number 51504. Find out more about BecomeNew. Head over to BecomeNew.com. I'm so glad that you stop by and I hope to see you next time.