Caring for the Soul

Episode Notes:

These programs were used for today's episode:

"None Like Him"

"Fasting and Feasting"

"An Encounter with Living Water"

"The Plague of Loneliness"

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Dannah Gresh: Is it selfish to take care of yourself?

What is a biblical approach to getting sleep?

Jen Wilkin: Rest is a good an right limit. It is a need the Lord has placed upon us.

Dannah: Or paying attention to nutrition?

Asheritah Ciuciu: This is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. We fast that we may feast on God's Word and know that He is enough.

Dannah: Or maintaining healthy relationships?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Our lives can never be fully connected with those around us until they are first connected vertically to God.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Maybe you’ve heard a term that’s been buzzing the last few years —“self-care.” If you listen to self-care proponents, this phrase includes all sorts of activities: exercise, sleep, relationships, finances, food, and mental health. That’s a lot of areas to be summed up in one catch phrase!

As followers of Jesus, should we be interested in self-care? Does it sound too much like selfishness? Should we replace the term with some other one like soul care?

We are about to explore that here on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. And the way we’ll go about it is to just set the buzzword aside. Let’s take a look at some biblical principles about the care we do need. We’re going to look at three main areas that sometimes get mixed in to this phrase “self-care”: rest, food, and relationships.

First, we know that God created us to work, and He also gave us rest. If we don’t get those in balance, we won’t be living life the way God designed us to live.

The Bible says plenty about laziness. Like 2 Thessalonians 3:10. It says, “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” I think we need that warning. We might be tempted to scroll social media or the news for hours and think we’re actually working.

But I think most of us probably struggle more with the opposite problem. It’s very tempting to get so caught up in all the tasks and activities we’re trying to do that we neglect rest. Listen to Psalm 127:1–2.

Unless the Lord builds a house,
its builders labor over it in vain;
unless the Lord watches over a city,
the watchman stays alert in vain.
In vain you get up early and stay up late,
working hard to have enough food—
yes, he gives sleep to the one he loves.

Jen Wilkin is a Bible teacher and author. Our team caught up with her at The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference. She explored how our need for rest points us to admit our need and lean on the Lord.

Jen Wilkin: Most of us in the United States grew up with this idea of, “I need to be self-made; I need to be self-sufficient. I should need nothing outside of myself. I should pull myself up by my bootstraps.”

That’s a concept that is foreign to the Scriptures, and it’s foreign to the character of God. God creates Adam and Eve in the garden with needs. They don’t start to have needs after the fall, and so that means that it must be good (God pronounced it “good”) that we were created to have needs.

And of course, it doesn’t take a lot of thought to figure out that that’s probably because we would then turn to Him to meet those needs—and that’s the way that that relationship was designed to work.

When we spend our days looking for ways to diminish or throw off needs that are just basic human needs, what we can be doing is ascribing to our self something that’s only true about God.

It’s logical that God needs nothing if He at one time existed without any of the things that we perceive to be most necessary. He doesn’t need wealth; He created all wealth. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills because He made them—but He didn’t need them, because He existed before they did. He will exist for all time without anyone giving Him life or sustaining His life.

And so, for us to acknowledge, “Okay, my needs are not a sign of some weakness that I need to cover, they are a sign that I’m created to need something transcendent—Someone Transcendent—then we begin to stop pushing down and spending all of our time trying to meet needs—particularly needs that only God can meet. We begin to rely on Him to be our Sustainer.

So, as I was walking over here for this interview, I walked by about five different coffee shops just to get here. I think it’s a sign in our culture of how we have sort of a disdain for rest. We feel like rest is for lazy people, and so if I can just keep plugging myself full of caffeine, think how much more productive I will be!

But rest is a good and right limit. It is a need that the Lord has placed on us—probably one of the most obvious ones. So, anytime you know someone who’s like, “I don’t need sleep. I’m fine!”—it’s probably a pretty good indication that they have made an idol of not needing rest.

Caffeine diminishes our sense of limited-ness. It makes us feel like we have extra room for productivity. But sooner or later—and I say this, honestly, as “the chief of sinners” right now, in this category. I love caffeine! But, I’m also aware that I can commit myself to more than I need to because I’ve given myself a false sense that I have more capacity than I do.

When we live within the boundaries that God rightly and graciously ordains for us, then we are more productive. We’re more able to do the things that He’s given us to do, because we’re doing them within the borders that He has ascribed.

Dannah: Ouch! She just stepped on my toe—my big toe—when she was talking about caffeine diminishing our sense of limitedness. That’s author and Bible teacher Jen Wilkin. Our team recorded that interview with her at one of the Gospel Coalition Women’s conferences. You probably heard some of the activity in the background. Even during a busy conference like that—and during the busyness of your day-to-day life—we all need a healthy, God-given pattern of hard work and rest. You can hear more from Jen at ReviveOurHearts.com.

I’m Dannah Gresh here on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. We started by exploring the buzzword “self-care.” And instead of getting caught up in a trendy word, we’re trying to get to some timeless principles we can actually stand on.

One of those is that God calls us to balance work and rest. Here’s another. God calls us to enjoy the good gift of food. But He also warns us against making that gift an idol. What’s a healthy view of food? Asheritah Ciuciu is the author of Full: Food, Jesus and the Battle for Satisfaction. Nancy DeMoss Wolgeuth and I interviewed Asheritah for the Revive Our Hearts daily program. Let me play you some of that conversation for you.

Asheritah Cuicui: I believe one of the reasons God created us dependent on food, on eating every day, is to give us a metaphor for the same type of spiritual dependence that we should have and do have on Him. And the irony is not lost on me that Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life when bread is so vilified nowadays.

Nancy: Right.

Asheritah: “Get away from all the carbs.” But, no, it’s nourishing.

Dannah: It used to be a much healthier and nourishing before we pulled all the nutrients out of it.

Asheritah: It’s like white cake now.

Dannah: Exactly.

Asheritah: But bread in its original ancient grain form, is nourishing, satisfying. It’s sustaining. It’s necessary. In many parts of the world now, bread is still a staple of every single meal of the day.

Nancy: They call it the “staff of life.” It was a requirement.

Asheritah: Yes. And Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life.”

I would encourage that woman to meditate on that and to ask the Lord to reveal more to her. I mean, it’s great that we’re sitting around here talking about it, but no one can substitute your own personal experience of living through the satisfying presence of Jesus.

Dannah: That’s true. Words can’t express how you will encounter God’s Spirit when you yourself fast.

Nancy: I’m thinking of Psalm 63, “Oh, God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (v. 1).

And it goes on to talk about being in the sanctuary of God, beholding His power and His glory. “Behold, your steadfast love is better than life”—(or food or anything else—I just added that in there!) “I will bless You. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed” (vv. 3, 5–6).

And just saying, “Lord, I want to love You and need You and be consumed with You and live mindfully of You in an even greater way than these longings I’m having for food” because I find that when we start having this whole conversation about food or fasting, it’s like, that’s all I can think about. And we’re saying, “No, we want to turn those longings for what is a good God-created, natural, enjoyable gift, but we want even greater longings for God.”

Asheritah: Yes.

Dannah: And His fullness in our lives.

Asheritah: Nancy, that makes me think of the Scripture that says, “He made them hunger in the desert and then satisfied them with manna so that they shall know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

And that’s the very Scripture that Jesus quoted on His 40-day fast. And when the enemy came to tempt Him, Jesus, points, “No. This is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality.” We fast so that we might feast on God’s Word and know that He is enough.

Nancy: And I’m thinking of a kind of opposite Scripture of that in Psalms where it says—God’s recounting their history back in the wilderness, the similar time that you were just talking about in Deuteronomy there, but he says they demanded, they craved this food in the wilderness. They demanded it. And it says that “God gave them their demands, [He gave them what they demanded] but He sent leanness into their souls” (Ps. 106:15 paraphrased).

So you can get the physical stuff you’re craving, demanding—whether it’s food or anything else—and find that it really doesn’t satisfy, that you end up with leanness in your souls.So all this food stuff, the absence or the presence of it, is supposed to keep bringing us, pointing us, drawing us to Him.

Dannah: So many good, hard, practical truths today. That’s Asheritah Ciuciu talking with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and me. To hear more of that conversation, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and look for today’s episode "Caring for the Soul."

I’m Dannah Gresh, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. We just heard Asheritah explain how our hunger is a powerful picture for our need for God. So is our thirst. The apostle John tells us about a woman who discovered this. She met Jesus as He and His disciples traveled through Samaria. Let me read you John 4, starting in verse 6.

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Erin Davis is going to unpack this passage for us.

Erin Davis: So what is this thirsty business? It doesn’t mean physical thirst. That’s kind of the problem the Samaritan woman had. She kept being, like, “Well, we’re at a well. So we’ll just drink some water.”

And Jesus was, “No, I’m talking about living water.”

And she’s saying, “Well, just put your bucket down and get some water.”

And He says, “No, I’m not talking about water.”

And she’s, like, “I’m very confused.”

But that’s not at all what Jesus was talking about. He’s talking about some other kind of thirstiness. So what is it? What’s He talking about?

Let’s go back to that encounter with the Samaritan woman and look at John 4:10–15. They’re continuing to kind of dialogue.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus is saying, “I’m the Savior. I can give you what you need.”

And she’s really saying, “I’m not sure You have what it takes. My needs are deep, Jesus. And my problems are deep. And my worries are deep. And my flaws are deep. Can You really handle this, Jesus? Because I don’t see that You have the tools needed to give me the kind of water that will satisfy.”

But just like Jesus was with Martha in the last session, He’s so patient with her. He’s so patient with me because I rarely get it the first time. He lovingly works to help her understand because He knows He’s her only shot at finding lasting satisfaction.

Then in verse 13 we get to the root of what He’s trying to teach her. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The water in Jacob’s well yielded transient satisfaction—transient satisfaction. And everything apart from Jesus will yield transient satisfaction.

So much in our lives is like that. It does satisfy us for a moment, but it’s transient. The Samaritan woman would fill her bucket with water, and she would head home down the path. Soon enough all that water would be gone, and then what would she have to do? She’d have to pick up her bucket again and head back to Jacob’s well for more.

Our bodies are ever craving. I think God did this to give us a neediness for Him. We need water. We take a drink. A little while later, we need more water. 

I like how the Matthew Henry Commentary sums it up. He writes:

The imperfections of all our comforts in this world, they are not lasting, nor our satisfaction in them remaining. Whatever waters of comfort we drink of, we shall thirst again. Yesterday’s meat and drink will not do today’s work.

Whatever waters of comfort you drink from, if they’re not the Living Water, you’re going to be thirsty again soon. And probably, your appetite for comfort is just going to increase because it’s not going to satisfy.

So we have in us this constant craving, this constant need to be satisfied. The pull of finding lasting satisfaction in all of us is great, and that is what Jesus is offering her. He’s offering her satisfaction for her deepest cravings, far beyond physical thirstiness.

Dannah: That’s Erin Davis pointing us to Jesus as the only one who can truly meet our deepest needs.

I’m Dannah Gresh, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. We are jumping off a catch phrase you might hear a lot. The word is “self-care.” We don’t find that word in the Bible. Maybe the word can be used in a way that’s compatible with biblical truth. Maybe sometimes it’s used in a way that isn’t.

But what we do know is this—God’s Word is timeless. And we can lean on it to understand our physical and spiritual needs. And it shows us the way to get those needs met in a truly satisfying way.

So we’ve looked at rest. We’ve looked at food. And now let’s turn to another topic that gets mixed into that popular phrase “self-care.” The topic is healthy relationships.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is sharing from Ecclesiastes 4:9.

Nancy: “Two are better than one.” Let’s just think about that phrase for a few moments. “Two are better than one.” We have a God who calls us to relationship. One is not a relationship. Two can be a relationship. God calls us to relationships. He calls us to relationship with Himself, and He calls us to relationship, community, and fellowship with each other.

He’s a God of relationship. God models relationship for us. He’s a God who has horizontal relationships with Himself. Within the Trinity, God is three in one. So we read in Genesis chapter 1, “Let us make man in our image,” God says (v. 27). Here is God having fellowship, common mission, shared goals, working together within the Trinity.

Then Proverbs 8:27, "I was there when he set the heavens into place." I think in the immediate context, this is a personification of wisdom. But it is a powerful description of the ministry of the Lord Jesus in creation. He says, "I was there when he [that is the Creator] set the heavens in place. I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world, and delighting in mankind."

What is it saying? Jesus was there when God created the world. They were working together. They were laboring together. They were enjoying each other's company. They were related to each other. They were in fellowship with each other.

God has horizontal relationships within the Trinity. He said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). He affirmed that relationship He had as Father with His Son. And Jesus said, “I and my Father are one. We have relationship. We stick together—if I can say it without being irreverent. We have fellowship with each other.”

But not only is God a God of horizontal relationships within the Trinity, He’s a God who has established a vertical relationship with us, with His creatures, and He pursues relationship with us.

I was just thinking this morning about some of the words that describe God’s attitude and God’s approach to His creatures. He’s a lover. “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). That’s a relational word. He’s a Father. That a relational word. He’s a friend. That’s a relational word.

So God is a God of relationship, and God made us for relationship. He made us to have a vertical relationship with God. Our lives can never be fully connected with those around us until they are first connected vertically to God.

Then God made us for a relationship that is horizontal, a relationship with each other. Genesis chapter 2, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Now man had God at that point, but God said there’s something that’s not complete—not that God was not sufficient, but God had designed man to have horizontal relationship. So God made a helper suitable for Adam. By the way, if you’re a wife, that’s why God made you—to be a helper, a companion, a completer suitable to your husband.

So God made us to need Him—we couldn’t breathe without Him. I mean, we are dependent on our relationship with God—and God made us to need each other. We can’t make it alone. We weren’t designed to be able to make it without that vertical and that horizontal relationship.

Dannah: Thanks Nancy. Did you catch what she said? “God made us to need Him, and God made us to need each other.” Friend, we can try to make it on our own . . . but . . . we need each other. 

That message is from a teaching series by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth called, "The Power of Relationships." You can hear the whole series at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and look for today’s episode.

All the teaching you hear at ReviveOurHearts.com and this program, Revive Our Hearts Weekend, is made possible by listeners who support the ministry with your prayer and financial support. Each year we close the accounting books at the end of May. We call it the end of our fiscal year. We take a look at the financial health of the ministry and make plans for the year ahead.

And speaking of plans, we are so excited about opportunities to get more messages translated into languages throughout Asia. We are watching ministry absolutely explode in Brazil in the Portuguese language. And of course, we hear from women all the time all over the world who are being changed by the daily and weekly reminder of the truth and power of God's Word.

To make it possible to continue this work, we are asking the Lord to provide $775,000 in donations here in May. When you give a gift of any amount toward that, we’d like to send you a new little book called (Un)remarkable: Ten Ordinary Women Who Impacted Their World for Christ. It’s a collection of ten biographies that will encourage you to do remarkable things through God’s help. 

Ask for (Un)remarkable when you give any amount by phone. The number is 1-800-569-5959, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com to make your gift.

Next week, let’s talk about our moms. Nancy is going to share about her mom, and I’ll talk about how my mom is a prayer warrior. I’m not sure what your relationship is with your mom, but I’m gonna guarantee that next week's episode will have nuggets of gold for you and all your friends. And . . . hint, hint . . . next Sunday is Mother’s Day. 

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team: Phil Krause, Dylan Weibel, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh

Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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