Are you looking for a quick-fix or a 5 step plan to get you out of this funk you’ve been in?
If you’re tired of depending on diet trends, self-help books and the next exercise fad to get you going – let’s talk.
I talk quite a bit about Wellness from Within on my blog, instagram feed and quite honestly this has become a mantra for me over the past several years.
Spoiler alert: There is no quick-fix and 5-step plans…well you probably know how those turn out.
Wellness comes from within.
This concept became a personal prayer of mine on a journey to seek out physical well-being.
True transformation comes when we turn our gaze to the One who created us.
The artist and master craftsman of our being. The builder of our bodies. The shepherd of our souls. The maker of our minds. Jesus Christ.
In my attempt to discover true health and wellness – I came to understand that the wellness we seek in our physical bodies is equally important as our emotional and spiritual well-being. This wellness connects and intersects with every area of our life, and just as important as the foods we eat and the ways we move our bodies are the friendships we foster, the books we read, the movies we watch and the careers we keep. It’s the way we approach spirituality and through which lens we perceive what life truly is. And at the base of it all, the foundation of our faith is actually the key ingredient in the entire journey to this wellness from within.
“You don’t have a soul, you are a soul – you have a body”
The truth is we are spiritual beings in a physical world. The bodies we see, the physical pieces of our existence as humans are specifically and carefully crafted to exist for a purpose, for a time and for a season. They are tangible and ever-changing and they operate only within the confines of time and space. They are bound by gravity and limited by our humanness, they age and wear down and exist in a broken and sinful world full of disease and dysfunction. Our physical qualities are the product of a DNA, passed down by another human who also exists in a broken and sinful world full of disease and dysfunction. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
Here is the beauty in all of this. Our bodies were created to serve a beautiful purpose – to house our souls, to bring into focus the eternal and everlasting work of our Creator on this earth. To reveal to our human senses the plan of God around us, through us and in us. Our bodies are the conduit of the breath of God working in His universe. And, I dare say our physical bodies will lack until we re-align our spiritual being back to our Maker.
So my journey has been one of turning inward to the source of it all. I’m definitely not naive enough to dismiss the physical and tangible aspects of the world around me. Our bodies suffer, they become sick, they put on weight, and they wear down. They age and wrinkle, get tired and contact disease. When we look in the mirror we are faced with the reality of imperfections and blemishes, when we dress ourselves each day we recognize the changes and movements more than anyone else may. But, I’d like to think that I’m more than my body. This limited, finite being that will soon age and no longer exist in time and space. I’d like to understand more deeply the part of me that will live forever and how to foster and nourish that piece of me also.
I dare say that putting off the weight and ailments of only the physical will serve no purpose to us at all unless we go to the deep places within. Just as in the physical, when those places are left unattended we suffer emotional and spiritual malnourishment.
If our Creator and Maker fit us together so perfectly. If He placed each strand of hair on your head or decided that a bare head may be better on you. If He blessed you with blue, green or brown eyes, if He made you short, tall, olive or ivory skin and if He gave you long arms or no arms at all – He did so for a reason. What is it? How does this physical world tell us more about who He is? When we pursue the answer to that question we soon find out who we are and the wellness begins to emerge.
I love the prayer the Apostle Paul prayed over the church in Thessalonica:
“Now may the God of peace make you Holy in EVERY way, and may your whole SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again”
– I Thessalonians 5:23
He is making us Holy. He is making us more like Him. He is transforming us. He is pursuing us fully – our entire being – to bring us into relationship with Him. He is revealing himself to us through all of this. To bring glory to Him in all things – spiritually, emotionally and physically.
So, In my pursuit of a healthy lifestyle and clean eating habits.
In my goals of physical well-being and body-fat percentage decreases.
Collagen, kale and yoga sessions will only get me so far.
May we turn inward – spending time with our Maker. Allowing the deep places of our spirit and soul to plug into the source of it all.
He’s making us Holy in EVERY way.
Spirit, Soul and Body.
