Absolutely, Always, Yes!

Hello, my name is Debbie and I am a self-hater.

Those probably aren’t the words that you first expected to read when you clicked on this post. But essentially, my Absolutely, Always, and Yes attitude really has resulted in what can be described as nothing other than self-hating.

Why else would I give endlessly to others and not myself? Why else would I prioritize everything and everybody over my relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you have an Absolutely, Always, and Yes of your own?

To give you an idea of what I mean, here are mine:
> Do you give to everyone and everything else and constantly neglect your own heart, mind, and needs? Absolutely!
>Do you people please to the point that it’s a detriment to your mental and physical state? Always!
>Do you feel like you’ve completely lost the base of who you are and where you stem from and what you have your solid grounding in? Yes!

Those are MY Absolutely, Always, and Yes! What are yours?

You see, life can be tricky. We were created, especially as women, to care and nurture and give. But we weren’t really created to understand the boundaries around those things. You’ve heard the saying ‘give until it hurts’. We literally do that. We give until it hurts our own faith, our own health, our own state of mind. We give selflessly without any regard to the consequences that will come upon us after days and months and years of giving and serving in this way.

It is undeniably true that we can’t pour out to others what we aren’t breathing in ourselves. If we don’t spend time with God, if we aren’t studying his Word, if we don’t have our own prayer life, if we aren’t living out the characteristics of Jesus—then how on Earth can we encourage and motivate and care for others with the core of necessary things that we don’t even allow ourselves?

We were designed to have time alone with the Lord and we were designed to renew, replenish, and refresh. Even Jesus went away for times alone so as not to be overwhelmed with all of his responsibilities and commitments and the needs of others. We must do the same. Whether it’s spending time alone to read the Bible or just laying our heads back and closing our eyes to listen to worship songs. Or perhaps it’s through gathering with others online or in person to share and grow our lives and our faith.

If we are giving our Absolutely to people all of the time, we’ll have nothing left inside us to actually lavish genuinely upon others. If we give our Always to everything that comes our way, then we’re taking away our ability to let Jesus guide our decisions and directions. And if we throw out our Yes in every single direction around us, then what Yes will we have left for God? Where will our Yes for silent time in His presence or for the precious treasure of growing in faith through His Word be? So be very careful with your Absolutely, Always, and Yes. Those responses are necessary to scatter throughout our days and weeks and lives in this world. But we need to make sure our AAY’s (Absolutely, Always, Yes) cause us to remain balanced, and not just busy. We all need that self care that helps us be better to ourselves so that we can be better to others.

Don’t miss this step because you cannot pour from an empty or exhausted vessel. God gave each of us a gift to use, and if we aren’t letting Him spend time with us to recapture our stillness and our breath and His presence – then we can’t live out that gift to the full potential in which God intended. Take a moment today, take several actually, and just breathe in who you are, how God’s sees you, and the blessings that are swirling everywhere around you.

We all want to make others happy, we all want to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. But we can only do that through Jesus. Only by allowing ourselves the same kindness and goodness and encouragement that we pour out onto others—only then can what we give be good and genuine to others, because we are being good and genuine to ourselves. God wants to take care of you and He wants you to take care of others, but He implores you to take care of yourself too.

What Absolutely, Always, or Yes are you willing to redirect so you can give that Absolutely, Always, or Yes to Jesus?