I was at a clergy gathering this morning and the program was on heart health. The speaker quoted Psalm 4:23, which says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
Now usually when the word “heart” is used in Scripture it refers to your inner self – not specifically the organ in the middle of the chest. When we hear that someone loves us with all their heart, it doesn’t refer to the heart muscle, but it refers to someone loving us with their entire being – all they are.
But as they were talking about heart health, I was thinking about the relationship between our health and our spirituality. (Okay, maybe I wasn’t paying attention as well as I could have!)
Under Jewish Law, there was an attempt to keep people eating healthy by stringent laws about what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat. I’ll admit that some of the rules might not make sense compared to what we might think of today as healthy eating, but if you consider the context, and that they were trying to keep food thousands of years before refrigeration, these rules make a lot more sense.
In the 1540’s John Calvin made some reforms in the city of Geneva that applied Christian principles to governing a city. I don’t know if there was any requirements regarding health or diet, but the importance of faith driving our physical being is something to consider.
At the same time, we are both spiritual beings and physical beings, and the spiritual and physical are connected in ways that we don’t understand. I’ve heard of studies that show that people of faith, especially people of faith that are actively prayed for, recover quicker from surgery and disease. And perhaps as a consequence of these studies, you’re hard pressed to find a hospital without a chapel, and a chaplain! As a believer (and as a minister) I would say that God is answering prayers here. Some doctors might disagree, but there is clearly a connection that we don’t understand medically.
All this is to say that our diet and exercise does affect us spiritually. I know that when I don’t feel well, I don’t pray as well, and I’m more apt to skimp (or even skip) Scripture readings and devotions.
Now usually when the word “heart” is used in Scripture it refers to your inner self – not specifically the organ in the middle of the chest. When we hear that someone loves us with all their heart, it doesn’t refer to the heart muscle, but it refers to someone loving us with their entire being – all they are.
But as they were talking about heart health, I was thinking about the relationship between our health and our spirituality. (Okay, maybe I wasn’t paying attention as well as I could have!)
Under Jewish Law, there was an attempt to keep people eating healthy by stringent laws about what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat. I’ll admit that some of the rules might not make sense compared to what we might think of today as healthy eating, but if you consider the context, and that they were trying to keep food thousands of years before refrigeration, these rules make a lot more sense.
In the 1540’s John Calvin made some reforms in the city of Geneva that applied Christian principles to governing a city. I don’t know if there was any requirements regarding health or diet, but the importance of faith driving our physical being is something to consider.
At the same time, we are both spiritual beings and physical beings, and the spiritual and physical are connected in ways that we don’t understand. I’ve heard of studies that show that people of faith, especially people of faith that are actively prayed for, recover quicker from surgery and disease. And perhaps as a consequence of these studies, you’re hard pressed to find a hospital without a chapel, and a chaplain! As a believer (and as a minister) I would say that God is answering prayers here. Some doctors might disagree, but there is clearly a connection that we don’t understand medically.
All this is to say that our diet and exercise does affect us spiritually. I know that when I don’t feel well, I don’t pray as well, and I’m more apt to skimp (or even skip) Scripture readings and devotions.
So don’t forget to take care of yourself, eat well and get the required exercise to be as healthy as you can, and your efforts to grow spiritually will be blessed as well.
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