The New Year is here! What goals did you set?
During our first family devotion of the New Year we asked
each of our three children what they wanted to do better in 2013. The boys said
they wanted to be nicer to their siblings. My daughter said, “I want to eat
healthier!”
Now that came as a little shock to me since our house is
pretty much a paleo-diet household—no processed foods, lots of fruits and
veggies and lean meats with ample amounts of seeds and nuts. As I looked at
this seven-year old healthy child, who just said she wanted to “eat healthier”,
my oldest son jumped in and rescued them all from a lecture on the finer points
of healthy eating.
Apparently their Children’s Pastor at church had taught on
resolutions for 2013 and eating healthier was one of his goals. Whew! Saved by
big brother!
Eating healthier is a great goal for 2013. However, I want
to dig a little deeper than just taking care of the physical body. Many of our
physical issues could be eliminated if we would look at the cause of those
issues.
Let’s take discontentment for example {something I need to
work on NOT being}. That doesn’t start as a physical ailment but it can develop
into one. It hits our spirit first—we feel restless. Usually we take our eyes
off of the Savior. That restless spirit develops into a soul problem {I’m
talking about the soul as the seat of emotions}. Our emotions are unbalanced
and we feel anxious or stressed. We start to seek out ways to soothe ourselves.
As women, we probably turn to chocolate or a bag of cookies, or half a pound
cake. We might even turn to something like a trashy t.v. show or book. Or,
reach for the prescription bottle and take an extra dose of that mind-numbing
pill. Can you see the progress here?
Before you know it the scales have moved to the right of the
numbers, you’re addicted to a prescription medicine, food or even alcohol. And
instead of tracing that glitch back to a discontented spirit we join a weight
loss program, addiction freedom group, or just hide in our house and say we are
sick.
Does that pattern look familiar in your own life? Maybe you
have a family member with those issues.
I think it’s safe to say that we all have struggled in one
area or another. We never seem to go deep enough when we look for help. For us
it’s always about beating that physical body/desire into submission. But we
never quite succeed, do we?
There are a couple of things that have worked for me and I
would like to share them with you.
Here are a few quick tips:
Develop a habit of synchronizing your spirit, soul and body
with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—every day submitting to the Father
{Hebrews 12:9; 1 Corinthians 6:17}.
Make sure you are feeding the spirit daily! {Ephesians 4:23;
Psalm 51:10}
How?
- Reading the Word
- Praying the Word
- Studying the Word
- Memorizing the Word
- Meditating on the Word
Discipline yourself to live daily with a spirit submitted to
the leading of the Holy Spirit and not to the “desires of the flesh.” {Galatians 5:16}
“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your
word.”—Psalm 119:9
The underlying secret here is to strive for health on a much
deeper level—the spirit. Living in obedience and communion with the Father is
the first step. When you are spiritually healthy the emotional and physical
health will follow as the Holy Spirit leads, and those additional changes will
not be because you’ve beat your body {physical} into submission, but because
you’ve submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Have a healthy and happy New Year!
