Craig T. Owens

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Anyone who has been verbally or emotionally attacked needs time to recover. Your self-care is absolutely essential to your personal health and the health of the people with whom you live and work. Your pain will eventually become their pain if you remain in a bruised and weakened place. 

Chapter 12 in my book When Sheep Bite is entitled ‘Self-care is Not Selfish.’ In that chapter I wrote—

     When you are recovering from biting sheep, you will need to be very intentional about self-care. I said earlier that self-care is not selfish. What is selfish is self-centeredness and self-reliance. When you think, “I cannot possibly take a break right now; too many people need me—besides, how will the work get done if I step away,” you are attempting to be self-reliant. This is a natural response, but it doesn’t give us the supernatural, refreshing oxygen that comes from sabbathing with Jesus. 

     This isn’t to diminish the importance of the true Sabbath Day, and I am not saying that sabbathing can be anything you want it to be. For Jesus, it was time alone with His Father—both set times and spontaneous times. But sometimes you will need a nap (like Elijah) or a meal with a trusted friend (as the disciples had with Jesus in Mark 6:30-32). These sabbathing breaks have a singular agenda: To get you to the place physically and emotionally where you can concentrate on your prayer time. After all, it’s hard to receive refreshing from God when you cannot keep your eyes open or your thoughts from straying. 

You can check out the article I wrote for Influence magazine here, and then pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite to help your recovery time. Check out what the public ministry of Jesus teaches us about the healthy practice of sabbathing. 

I also recommend these related posts and videos about self-care: 

• Playtime can be a leadership tool 
• Leaders need to refresh 
• The importance of margin 

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