April 8, 2013

My body is worth devoting time to. When I count the blessings God has given me, it isn’t often that I think about the blessing my body is to me. But really, my body does many things for me, it allows me to walk, run, play, work, serve others, be tickled, be held, breath, jump, clap my hands, sing, play piano, wash dishes, feed myself, speak, laugh, feel the wind, smell flowers and chocolate chip cookies, among a myriad of other things. I will no longer take my body for granted! As such, I will devote time to thinking about my health and to taking actions that will ensure the future health and wellness of my body.

Ray Kybartas (the author of Fitness is Religion) is very wise when he says that fitness is a spiritual journey. In truth I think it would be more correct to say that fitness is part of the spiritual journey. Every piece of God’s creation sings God’s glory and praise; our bodies are not the least part of God’s creation. Moreover, our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t our bodies be living, breathing examples of  God’s glory and beauty?

Many Christians think that they need to devote so much of their time to their spiritual health that they can neglect their physical health and wellness. I propose that this is a misunderstanding. Jesus never said or did anything that hinted at it being okay to be lazy in any sphere of life. He talked about fasting as a normal discipline of spiritual life, yet in today’s day and age we have almost forgotten the whole existence of fasting and spiritual disciplines like it. Or, if we haven’t forgotten about them, we excuse ourselves from the responsibility of using them because we don’t want to “be too radical” or “I wouldn’t want to seem holier than thou”. Once again, I think this is a misunderstanding of the purpose of spiritual disciplines. One does not engage in them to brag about one’s spiritual prowess as it were, we are to engage in spiritual disciplines in order to build our spiritual strength, in a way, engaging in these disciplines is saying, “I am not feeling very strong spiritually, so I am working to help my spirit be more open and in tune with God’s will for my life and the world.”

As I continue to document my journey from physical lay-about to healthy, strong individual, I want to document the changes this journey brings to my spiritual awareness and journey.

Here is a picture I recently downloaded from google to help keep me inspired.