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| Courtesy glamour.com |
I have read this scripture perhaps a million times and I have never stopped to really equate this passage with anything remotely having to do with health and wellness. However, the more I read it the more God began to speak to me about it. God has provided everything we need to achieve health and wholeness. When David, the writer of the text says "forget not all his benefits " I don't feel he was talking about money or prosperity.
David is reminding us to take advantage of all the beneficial, life giving things that God has provided for our well-being. Once we acknowledge that we have not been treating our body's as the temple's they are, God is forgiving and will restore us. He forgives our iniquity and heals our dis-ease. Once forgiveness and healing take place, our eyes become opened to all of the good things he created and we will be satisfied. The good things that God provided (fruits, vegetables, nuts, s eeds, etc) will restore us and as David says "thy youth is renewed like the eagles."
Anyone who has completed a detoxification program, followed by a complete change in diet and lifestyle will tell you that it literally took years off their life. They felt younger, more vibrant, and full of energy. All of their senses awakened, their minds became sharper and clearer, their eyesight and hearing improved and overall they reached a higher level of consciousness. Could this be God's prescription for staying young and healthy? Perhaps this is what David is talking about in the text above.
Many times, we as Christians find it easier to think that God waves a magic healing wand over our lives without us having to be accountable for the diet and lifestyle choices we have made. We believe that as we age, we are supposed to become feeble minded, forgetful, fragile and decrepit. As loving and forgiving as God may be, he is very clear in his word indicating that "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."-Galatians 6:7 I am a believer that an individual can heal of all manner of sickness and disease, regardless of what it may be. We can also maintain sharp minds, physical strength and starve off other signs of age. From AIDS, to cancer, from Herpes or Diabetes, God designed the human body with the incredible ability to heal itself when given what it needs to thrive. The medical establishment would have you deceived in believing that once an adverse diagnosis is given that all you can do is 1) manage the disease with drugs and learn to live with it or 2) Give into the disease and prepare to die. They would also have you deceived into thinking that alzheimer's, dementia and osteoporosis comes with the territory of being old. Neither of these schools of thought are remotely close to the kind of life God promises us in his word. He said that "I am come that they might have life, and that they have it more abundantly." -John 10:10. As victorious Christians, we should be the authority on healing sickness and disease, yet we are more sick and drug dependent that our secular counterparts. Today's modern day church is so sick and dependent on the Western medical establishments' prescription drugs that many of us have never truly seen healing take place. An even bigger shock is that the secular holistic world has grabbed a hold to the understanding that 1) God designed the human body to heal itself from the inside out and 2) They understand that healing is not just physical, but it includes the spirit man as well. Wow, how did "we" the church, miss this?
Any holistic practioner will attest to the fact that physical healing of sickness and disease must involve your mind, body and spirit. It involves you shedding negative thoughts, emotions, unforgiveness, bitterness, and all manner of evil in order to facilitate your physical healing. If your heart is not right and you lack love, joy and peace you can literally prevent your body from healing. Are these not benefits that God has promised us in his word if we follow his prescription for living? Doesn't following him include health and wholeness in our physical man as well as well as our spirit man? God's prescription for health, wellness and healing is not some spiritual mystery that only an elect few get to experience. It isn't something you get by responding to an alter call hoping the pastor touches you and somehow you're made whole. He has given us specific instructions on how to eat and live so that we can live the abundant life. Health, Wellness and vitality is not in a pill. Recognize the good things he created that provide your body with what it needs to thrive. God created herbs for the service of man and for the healing of the nations. Visit his pharmacy and fill the prescription he has already written for you.
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| courtesy glamour.com |
FINALLY!!! I"ve been waiting for this! 'Bout time :)
ReplyDeleteWell put April. I am currently transitioning into the raw food lifestyle and though I am not a religious person, I must say that I am happy you have written about health & nutrition from a religious perspective because I know many religious, church going people who put too much faith into the medical/pharmaceutical community (while still suffering from illnesses), but refuse to believe that whole food from Mother Nature (or God for religious people) is here to cure them. Maybe putting health in this context will provide people with an "AHA" moment. They seem to have all the faith in the world that God has their back in other situations, but why not health? Is God just gonna leave you out to dry? There is no need to wish for a miracle or keep praying that your diabetes/hypertension/high blood pressure disappears (while you scarf down some soul food) when the cure has already been placed in your grasp. People have a real disconnect between really living and just surviving.
ReplyDelete"Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food" ~Hippocrates