I meet a lot of people in the course of my ministry. Sadly, I see too many who are not taking care of themselves. Many of them clearly feel terrible. Anyone can see this in the way they look and the way they carry themselves. You simply cannot look really great if you don’t feel great. How you feel will show up somewhere; in your body language, the dull look in your eyes, or even the color of your skin.
It is in our nature to take care of ourselves, so why don’t we? I thought about the ways that this can go wrong, and I came up with these reasons:
1.
We
don’t know how to take care of our physical bodies. Decades of bad diets, misinformation,
and easy access to fast food and prepackaged food have left people amazingly
confused about what a wholesome diet is and how they should eat.
2.
We
have a skewed body image planted in our minds by media and advertising. On one side we are inundated with unattainable
ideals of beauty, while on the other, obesity is so prevalent that it’s almost
considered the norm. We need to reset our internal picture of what a healthy
person should look like.
3.
We
have lost touch with exercise. For virtually all of human existence, exercise was an integral
part of our daily existence. Now we've invented enough conveniences that we
often live completely divorced from exercise. However, it turns out a good deal
of our well-being is dependent on exercise.
4.
We
have let ourselves slip into unworkable lives. With the incredible pressures of juggling
career and parenthood, paying steep loans and increased fuel prices and burning
the proverbial candle at both ends and everywhere in between, it is oh-so-easy
to put the workout off, grab a cheeseburger on the run, cheat our sleep time in
order to catch up on paperwork and let the tail wag the dog until we’ve cut
everything out of our lives that once gave us pleasure or kept us sane. This is
bad enough, because life is a gift and is meant to be joyful. It should be
pleasurable and sane.
5.
We
have become pathologically selfless. Selflessness can be addictive. It feels so good to do for others
and it makes us feel important. Yes, it is a good thing to help others and
should be a major part of our life, but in my line of work, I often see people
who routinely ignore their basic needs. The only thing that gives them meaning
is doing things for others. This is admirable, but it can easily cross the line
into mistaking suffering for virtue. Martyrs usually end up bitter. And once
the body breaks down and life is no longer joyful, it becomes increasingly hard
to serve anyone. Volunteers in a soup kitchen don’t let their pots fall apart
while they ladle out one more bowl of soup. They take the time to care for the
equipment they need to do their calling. And you should do the same with your
most important piece of equipment—your body.
I am not suggesting
that we be selfish because that renders us very unhappy and is not how God
teaches us to live. We are to live sacrificially and be involved in doing good
works, but we must not ignore our own basic needs in the process. Everything in
life must be balanced or something breaks down and quite often it is us.
6.
We
have lost our support. When
we don’t have a good social network or a godly foundation to keep our spirits
high, it becomes easy to slip into boredom, loneliness, and depression. If we aren't able to somehow fill that void, the devil will. You may have heard the
saying “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Well, let me tell you, the devil loves one!
He’ll put lots of bad food within easy reach and let you mistake spiritual or
emotional hunger for physical hunger. Maintaining a good support network is a
terrific way to prevent the formation of bad habits.
We need to have right
people around us who will speak if they see us getting out of balance. We need
to spend regular time in fellowship with God and learning His principles. His
Holy Spirit who works through His Word convicts us of wrongdoing and gives us
the chance to make positive changes before we break down or become ill.
7. We
have forgotten our own value. This is the biggest reason we don’t take care of ourselves. If
you don’t understand your own importance in the Big Plan, taking care of
yourself seems pointless. Reminding you of your place in God’s plan is my first
and most important task.
If you’re not sure of
your value in God’s eyes, then I invite you to read this article. There’s a
crucial link between our spirits and our bodies that we all need to understand.
God has a great future
planned for you and you need to be ready for it! You need to look great and
feel great, ready to do whatever God asks of you.
