You need to fully engage with those around you. We don’t live in a bubble that is isolated from others. We need to realize that we are put here to interact with others. But in order to do that effectively we have to start by focusing on getting healthy ourselves. That means we learn to really be concerned about our physical health. In fact it was so important that loving ourselves is a biblical command – “love your neighbor as yourself”. We can’t love others if we don’t learn to love ourselves. That is a huge step for many of us. We struggle to even like ourselves, let alone love. But we can’t love others until we get to that point. It is vital. When we talk about health from God’s perspective, it also means we love our body. Why? Because our body is the temple of the holy spirit – we can’t have spiritual health without physical health. So it really matters for us to become the kind of person God desires.
So what is the biggest physical challenge you face? Do you have something? Don’t like your nose, or your height, or maybe the waste size you have. There aren’t a lot of people I have talked with that are truly satisfied with their physical body. Yet we need to remember that God created us as we are and He never makes any junk. God makes us the way we are for a reason. That is not an excuse to be out of control or not care about health, in fact it should motivate us exactly the opposite way. For me the battleground is weight and my love to eat. I struggle to control myself and make sure that I am not over eating. I love food. Nothing wrong with that – just when it goes to excess which unfortunately it does too often. But God’s desire is that I allow Him to help me be victorious with this. We also need to be healthy emotionally and ultimately relationally. God desires us to be healthy and very much connected. Like the command in the airplane to put our own oxygen mask on first and then help those around us, we need to be healthy physically, spiritually, emotionally and relationally so we can make a difference for others. What areas do you need to get fixed?
Posted by asorensen 
