Conservative Commentator Allie Beth Stuckey: Christ Is my Sufficiency

Published: March 9, 2022

Conservative Commentator Allie Beth Stuckey: Christ Is my Sufficiency

By Movieguide® Staff

In her book, “You’re Not Enough (And That’s Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love,” conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey refutes the culture of “self-love.”

In a recent conversation with Kirk Cameron on his TAKEAWAYS show, Stuckey confessed that she struggled with the same unbiblical idea of self-love that she sees so many Christians fall into today.

“I decided to write this book in 2018 because I just noticed that a lot of my fellow women and especially fellow Christian women were talking a lot about self-love, self-care, self-empowerment,” Stuckey told Cameron. “It was just strange that I was hearing this from Christian women. Christians are supposed to die to self and actually scripture said that in the end days people will be lovers of self and they don’t say that in a good way.”

Stuckey said that she struggled with eating disorders and drinking in college due to buying into the lie that she was sufficient.

“I realized that I had kind of struggled with this idea too of wanting to be the solution to my problems, wanting to be enough for myself, trying to prove that I am self-sufficient, that I didn’t need God, that I didn’t need his rules and I think that’s what a lot of women are doing today when they are latching on to kind of the self-love movement,” she said.

However, a meeting with a Christian counselor who told Stuckey the truth about her lifestyle woke her up to her need for Jesus.

“Providentially, as I talked about in the book, there was a Christian counselor who, rather than coddling me and telling me a lot of the things that unfortunately women hear today, she just said ‘look you are killing yourself through this eating disorder and through this destructive behavior and if you want to die when you’re 22 or 23 keep it up,'” she said.

“It took a Christian counselor telling me a really hard truth and telling me what my destructive behavior was doing to kind of awaken that shame in me and I really thank the Lord for that shame, I thank the Lord for feeling so guilty and so bad and so sad over just how far I had gone and his faithfulness to me and sharing that hard truth with me and bringing me back,” she added.

Stuckey said that her book highlights how self-seeking ends with emptiness. In contrast, the pursuit of God provides strength and the ability to love others.

“I talked to a lot of different women as I was writing this book,” she added. “There was one woman that I talked about in the book… she realized that actually the journey to trying to be enough, to try to be enough for yourself, for your kids, or your husband that actually depletes you. It actually exhausts you,” she said. “We’re not enough and the good news of the book is that that’s not just okay, it’s really good news because Christ is our sufficiency.

“If we were enough for our salvation, for sanctification, for our strength, we would not need Christ,” she added. “But we needed him so much that he actually died on the cross, a brutal death that he did not deserve because we’re insufficient. Our sufficiency in all things salvation and otherwise comes from Christ and trying to find our sufficiency in ourselves or elsewhere it’s just going to exhaust us.”

However, Christians also have a responsibility to take care of their bodies, including rest, Stuckey said.

“The idea of stewardship that I need to rest, I need to rejuvenate, I need to take a step back, I need to enjoy these good blessings in my life that God has given me just for the sake of enjoyment that I am stewarding my time well that I’m stewarding my body well that I’m stewarding my work well that is very different than an attitude of entitlement,” she said. “When we think of God as our shepherd and God as our caretaker and God as the one who takes care of us and we see the different opportunities for rest as really gifts from him.”

Stuckey noted that one of the misconceptions about self-love is that it is a biblical concept. However, the author cited Mark 12:31 as one of the misused scriptures in the conversation about self-love.

“When Jesus says to love our neighbor as ourselves, people say that’s also a directive to love yourself, but that’s not actually what Jesus is saying,” she said. “He is saying loving yourself is really a given, that we are born loving ourselves…

“I think what it means to have an innate love of yourself means that you are always seeking your own well-being your own safety your own security to meet your own needs to satisfy your hunger and your thirst,” she added. “So it seems that what Jesus is saying is that just as you are so naturally driven to love yourself and take care of yourself in these ways you need to love your neighbor in the same way.”