“Treat yourself!” “You deserve a break.” “You’ve earned it!” “Take some time for yourself.” “How can you love and care for others if you aren’t loving and caring for yourself first?”  

How many times have you heard these mantras? It’s so easy to either jump onto the bandwagon of self-focused self-care, or to run from it and find ourselves neck-deep in striving. Where’s the balance between tending to ourselves and idolizing ourselves? We can practice biblical self-care when we take the focus off of ourselves and see both ourselves and God in our rightful places. 

In the Bible, we see God caring for His people as a shepherd tends to beloved sheep (John 10:11). God does not expect us to be fully functioning without care—He Himself cares for us as His own kids. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14). 

True self-care is recognizing our dependent state before God. We are not God; we need to be fed and rested to function. When we see self-care as an aspect of our worship (as the podcast mentioned in the “Resources” section points out), we can care for ourselves while still focusing on God. As we allow God to care for us, we allow Him to shepherd and lead us in His will. And in the seasons where it feels like we don’t have the time we would like to care for ourselves, we can press closer to Jesus as we know that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (Isaiah 40:29, 2 Corinthians 12). It’s not about getting ourselves up to 100% capacity; it’s about drawing closer to Jesus and letting Him lead us – in the valleys and in the green pastures of life (Psalm 23). 

Let’s take a closer look at today’s Bible passage. Even after accomplishing incredible works and having God’s own hand upon him (1 Kings 18:46), Elijah ran away in fear and asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:3-4). God, in His infinite kindness and mercy, provides Elijah with food to eat and water to drink. God sustains Him, and later in this chapter we see God providing by giving Elijah work to do and community through a fellow believer (Elisha). God met Elijah’s needs and gave him rest when he was weary, and God does the same for us (Psalm 4:8). When we practice the rhythms of self-care through a lens of humility, we are honoring God and reminding ourselves that we’re created to be dependent on God. 

Instead of the world’s calls to treat ourselves and build ourselves up in our own strength, we can humbly acknowledge that God alone is self-sufficient. He meets our needs in Himself, and is gracious enough to provide us with abounding nourishment as we live our Kingdom callings on earth. We can trust our Shepherd and be confident in His presence and goodness (James 1:17) as we practice self-care with the focus of honoring Him.