A normal occurrence
The other day my husband and I went for a health checkup. The doctor asked us to take a blood test in order to check-out all the parameters to do an assessment-cum-diagnosis. We did it and had a health portfolio sent to us.
Doctors looked at the blood, liver, kidney, chest profiles, compared it with a standard for each, and then gave their diagnosis. They noted the areas of deviations from the norm, and discussed the steps that I needed to take to maintain a good health profile.
I was a bit alarmed to note some signs and signals of potential ill health. I immediately began following the given diet chart, and adhering to the exercises to maintain a disease-free life. I was conscious of the work that still remained for me to accomplish and therefore, quickly began to align my health to the required standards relevant to my age and gender. Fear did grip me momentarily, but then my equanimity was restored when I hauled up my faith.
Beyond the Natural: The Eternal Perspective
Once my health came back to even keel, I was struck by the fact that I was so careful and concerned about my physical well-being, for a life on earth that would be confined, at the most, to a period of 70-80 years. I was less concerned about my spiritual health, something that would ensure my life in eternity. I realised that I was giving more importance and focus to a shorter life than that which would help me live forever, a longer span of life. What I needed to do and really focus on was a health checkup of my spiritual life, and see how I measured up to the standards!
For this, I must assess the areas where I was diseased or prone to disease, or had the potential to develop chronic ailments. I needed to have a health portfolio of my spiritual being, and assess the parameters that would codify the health of my inner being. Then, I would be able to develop and maintain a proper diet, exercise and rest patterns to grow into maturity.
Charting my spiritual health condition would enable me to determine the growth appropriate to my age and season of life. I can then ensure and set in place apt patterns of nutrition, work, rest & recreation.
A Necessary Caution: The Invisible Root
It is a known maxim that man is a social animal, and not just a physical being. That we possess a psyche is an accepted fact and thus has grown the field of mental health and emotional sustenance. Yet, there is a still more important factor of us that either we are often ignorant of or neglect simply because it is not visible. That is the spirit which is core of our being and the root of who we are.
The question is whether we are taking care of our spiritual well-being and the condition of our souls. In a quest for physical fitness and well-being, we are neglecting to worry about our spiritual and soul fitness. The factor of the spirit is deeper than the psyche and a very neglected factor in the human health system of the day. Caring for the spirit of a person determines the health and total well-being of that person. Real wholistic or holistic health depends on the spiritual well-being of a person.
How then can we keep fit, spiritually? The key to keeping fit is taking right and sufficient quantities of air, water, food, sleep or rest, exercise, sunlight or warmth, shelter, and enough pressure, and companionship.
Essential ingredients for Life
Air or oxygen is the most important need for human existence, and when we search for livable planets, the number one criteria is the type of air existing there. Even now, different cities are being plagued by pollution, making them unlivable and causing many to suffer ill-health. Purity of air quality determines the quality of life we lead daily, with the very young and the very old becoming susceptible to declining oxygen in the atmosphere.
Water makes up most of the human body, and everyone, across the ages, needs at least 60 % of hydration. It is significant that about 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, making it the “Blue Planet,” with the vast majority (around 96.5%) being saltwater in the oceans. The remaining land (about 29%) consists of continents and islands and this surface water is part of a larger system. This system includes fresh water in glaciers, rivers, lakes, and underground, plus water vapor in the atmosphere, all constantly moving through the hydrological cycle.
Food and nutrients are the priorities for survival and living, for growth and for resistance against the ravages of disease. Good digestion helps metabolise proteins,vitamins, fats, mineral salts, and carbohydrates into glucose and oxygen. Without these the bodily parts and organs cannot grow, fight against disease, and be healthy.
Shelter and protection ensure that we are not exposed to the ravages of weather, and climatic changes or upheavals. With the deterioration of the quality of atmospheric conditions, and given the unseasonal weather conditions, it is important to have a roof over your head. Protection involves guarding ourselves from contamination and impurities that will adversely affect our well-being.
Spiritual Parallels: The Inner Man
Now how do these practical necessities and conditions translate for us in the spiritual realm, and what are elements that ensure the health of our inner man?
The first one that is of importance is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the One Who truly infills us with consciousness of the heavenly realm. When God created man, He breathed into the mud form He had fashioned, and man/woman became a living soul. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost this indwelling presence of the Spirit of God, thus becoming victims of base instincts, negative emotions, and identity loss. Until Christ came and paid the price for our sins, mankind was truly lost and wandering around without a purpose.
After the price He paid on the cross, we have been given the opportunity to belong to Him, and call God our Father when we wholeheartedly accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Now, restored to wholeness and wholesomeness, we also have the grace of being anointed by the Holy Spirit, thus, sealed and set apart for Him (Eph 1:13-14). It isn’t without rhyme or reason that John records He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” Jesus’ action here evokes the original creation of humanity and fulfils part of His promise to send the Holy Spirit (John 15:26–27). This will be crucial to their mission, though the full indwelling of the Spirit will not happen until Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4).
Manna of the Word
In each His wilderness temptations, Jesus gave profound answers to the enemy from the Word of God. The first temptation related to food, and came at a time when Jesus was at His lowest point in physical strength. After forty days of fasting, Jesus was weak in body though strong in His inner man. That’s when the devil tempted him to satisfy his hunger by using the power of God to change stones into food. Jesus defeated him by declaring that man is not to live by food alone, but by word that came from the mouth of God.
Jesus was quoting from Deut 8:5, where Moses was delivering to the nation of Israel his farewell address. In previous chapters, Moses rehearses and reminds them of all that happened to them for forty long years. He ends it with this admonition: He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Through their wilderness walk, God was educating them in many things, and specifically, in this verse with regard to food. On the negative side, God wanted them to learn that true life is found in more than full stomachs and material things. On the positive side, they had to learn that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. This is the tragedy today with Christians – many still live by bread alone, living only for material things, for what can be bought, sold, earned, or possessed materially. They haven’t learnt or understood that true life and life force comes from consuming and connecting with His Word.
Water of the Word and Spirit
According to Prov 18:4 The words of the mouth are deep waters, words of mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream. If this is something for man’s words, how much more for the Word of God! The Word is not just food but also water, especially as that which washes us. In Eph 5:26, we see thst Christ makes His bride holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. Jesus also told His disciples that they were clean through the Word He spoke to them.
King David wrote in Ps 119 that he hid God’s word in his heart so that he may not sin; that he gained wisdom, and was wiser than his teachers because of meditating on God’s precepts. He further emphazises that a young man can maintain a clean life only by adhering to the Word of God.
In John 7:37-39 we see: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Mathew Henry’s Commentary notes: The Spirit dwelling and working in believers, is as a fountain of living, running water, out of which plentiful streams flow, cooling and cleansing as water.
Shelter and Protection: The Family and Community of Faith
It is not enough for us as living beings to have just air, water, and food, for a crucial component of our well-being is being sheltered from the elements of the environment. Having a place to rest and be safe is as important as the other factors since need protection from the heat, cold, rain, harsh winds, etc. Beginning with shelters of cave and stone, we have grown to raising edifices of every kind, which we build, not just for shelter but also for beauty and peace. Homes and houses bolster identity, and serve as retreats of rest and restoration from the world around.
Whatever happens outside, a man’s home and family are his castle, and a woman’s refuge and reward is her home and her household. Ps 128 and Prov 31, normally quoted, read and preached at weddings prove this. Ideally, a man and woman both reign as sovereigns over this small kingdom they create together, for themselves and their progeny. Ps 68:6 declares that God places the solitary and lonely in families, and thus, the family is our shelter for providing psychological safety and security. Family and home is the ideal place and environment to raise the next generation, imparting godly faith and moral values through a consistent life based on scriptures. Just as a garden needs a fence, seeding, watering, fertilizing, and weeding to flourish, so also children require the protection of parents, extended family, friends, and the family of God to grow and mature.
In Mark 10:30 we read: “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” A shelter and protection we do not comprehend or apprehend is the Church, which is the Community of Faith, the Body of Christ, which is God’s answer to all who lose their family because they belong to Him. The city of refuge that God has kept for us as His people is His own family, bought by the blood of Christ and made one by His Spirit. Anyone who doesn’t understand this hasn’t grasped God’s plan and intent for those who follow Christ and are called by His Name!
Once you become His disciple you cannot afford to be a loner since you will become a target for spiritual attacks, deceptions, and false teachings or teachers. The elders and leaders of the church provide a canopy of protection, and a covering of authority that shield you from all the onslaught of the enemy as well as his fiery darts. Their prayers, teaching, and wise counsel will prevent you from falling prey to the wiles of the devil and his legions. This is why Heb 13:17 admonishes us to “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.” Mentors and fellow-believers also ensure that your fires of faith burning bright and kindle the flames of your love for Christ to not die out.
Healthcare and wellness monitoring
Covid taught us that our health determines the quality of our life and existence, and we learnt in the aftermath of it that we should pay attention to our wellness. We have now understood that exercise, good rest, sufficient sleep, and enough sunshine are important ingredients for life, besides air, food, and water. Post-covid many are consciously take efforts to include walks, gym time, and other activities to maintain and preserve health.
Sadly, we haven’t and aren’t giving a similar attention to our spiritual well-being, and are most often careless about it. We take it for granted that once saved is always saved, and do not understand how we are being attacked by germs and microbes that corrupt our faith. Many of us our losing our spiritual vitality and vigor because we are negligent of what keeps our soul and spirit in the pink of health. We neglect spending time with the Lord, being empowered by His Spirit, consuming the Word of God, and being saturated by His presence.
Our mind is not being renewed by the principles in the Scriptures, and we are not calibrating ourselves to His precepts. The result is that we make decisions based on the philosophy of this world and these times we live in. We are taking care to root ourselves not in Christ, to the detriment of our homes and families. Contrary to the teachings of Christ, we are pursuing earthly goals, and spending time in acquiring treasures on earth which will fade away. Thinking we are rich and healthy, safe and secure, we are blind to reality of our state and the real things of life.
We sacrifice the meeting together of saints and neglect the table of Lord, which we ought not to sideline as the coming of Lord draws near as it is said in Heb 10:25. Our community impact and witness is weak and anemic since we are not strong enough to counter accusations, nor prepared enough to face oppositions. Instead of banding together to stand united to wrestle against forces of darkness, we are losing out since we compete with each other. We neglect the counsel of the elders and leaders, rebel against the warnings of the wise, and in general, exhibit the spirit of anarchy rather than of humility and submission.
May we wake up to take care of our individual, family, and community health and healing so that our impact and influence is just as Jesus said – salt and light of the earth!
MULLINGSPICE 