Everybody wants to feel happy. Many times I have heard, and you probably have too, that in order to really feel happy with your life, you must first learn how to love yourself. Is that true? It sounds logical. After all, how can I be happy if I don’t like myself?
The question I want us to think about is this: is loving ourselves something you and I need to learn?
The more I think about it, the less I’m convinced that I actually need to work more on loving myself. I look around and see a lot of evidence that I’m actually doing a fine job taking care of myself already.
Cook outs, for example, have pointed this out to me. No one had to tell me that I really should eat all those chips, hamburgers, and fudge brownies. I did that for myself. That reminds me of what one boy said after a large holiday meal. He watched his father loosen his belt and turned to his mother and said, “Look, Dad just moved his decimal point over two places.”
I can relate! Orson Wells once quipped, “My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for four, unless, of course, there are three other people eating with me.”
Actually, our country is filled with people who are showing self-love this way consistently. Andy Rooney pointed out that the two biggest sellers in any bookstore are cookbooks and diet books. One tells you how to make delicious food, the other tells you not to eat it.
Sadly, though, food is not the only way we show how much we love ourselves. We get depressed when we can’t get life to work the way we want it to. We get angry when someone else doesn’t show us the respect we are looking for. In fact, unhappy people tend to be those who are the most concerned about themselves. Aren’t we surrounded by people who are bitter and angry because others aren’t putting them first? We see it in others. If we’re really honest, can’t we see it in ourselves, too? We all tend to put ourselves first in one way or another.
Admitting our own selfishness and self-love is actually the first step to happiness. Our hearts are full of self-focus and sin. The Bible tells us that turning from our selfishness is the path that takes us to happiness. Notice: “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).
When we repent, our hearts will grow to love God because of what He has done to rescue us from our self-focused condition. We will be free to love others and to love God Himself. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Only then can you “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Real happiness begins when we love God, not when we love ourselves. Or to put it another way, happiness comes from our submission to God, not from trying to feel good about ourselves.
To know God is to love Him. Jesus Himself said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Have you learned to love God instead of loving yourself? That is where true happiness comes from.
Leave A Comment