03/26/2008: "Spiritual Health"

In this modern age, a healthy lifestyle is the latest fad. This isn't to suggest that this is a bad thing; on the contrary it is very important to look after your health to ensure a long and proactive life.

And yet as much as we now try to maintain our physical peak, we make the mistake of thinking, that's all we have to do. We are both spiritual and physical beings, so of course it makes sense that if we only look after one side of ourselves, our balance is thrown out of whack.

The Bible is full of stories of people who have been miracuously healed. And yet in the story of Levi, a tax collector, Jesus sets the tone that physical healing isn't as important as our spiritual health.

Luke 5:27-32
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

If we were already perfect, then we never would have needed Jesus to redeem us. Yet even though we know this, we still get deluded into thinking we are perfectly fine regardless. And because of this, we let our spiritual health slip into dire straits.

I know I'm guilty of this. I struggle to commit to reading the Bible on a regular basis. I struggle to maintain an active prayer life. I struggle to pay attention during church. All of us have been guilty of this, whether for short bursts of time or extended periods.

But the truth of the matter is, God doesn't ask us to do this just for the sake of keeping Him happy. He asks this of us because He knows that in the long run, this will help us. This will make us happier, even if right now we cannot see that.

The only way to maintain our spiritual life, is with God's help. Trying to do it on your own, is like trying to box with one hand tied behind your back. Sure, you may get a couple of good hits in, but overall, you're just going to go down. It's impossible to be whole without a healthy spiritual life, and it is impossible to have that healthy spiritual life if you don't actively pursue God in your life.

Nor can we live a healthy life at all if we seek to only maintain our physical health and neglect the rest.