Healthy Bodies

Proverbs 14:30(ERV)

^" Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but jealousy is like a cancer."

I think this is a good place to begin a series of blogs on being transformed by the renewing of your mind. My last blog revealed that I had made some changes in my physical health. One might follow this blog to see what kind of food that I was eating or what kind of new diet I was following. Most of the women in America are wanting to lose weght or improve their health in some way.

However, I think we need to realize that the battle must begin deeper than discovering a new diet or exercise plan. True health starts with renewing our mind and not simply eating certain foods. Google the word "diet" and countless plans will appear, each promising to be the magic answer to our weight/health problems. I am convinced that the Bible contains ALL the answers to EVERY problem we will face.  After all, it is God's Word and he is all-knowing. His knowledge trumps the world's knowledge anyday of the week.

Proverbs states that "peace of mind makes the body healthy." I have lost most of my readers with that answer! Please stay with me here.  Before any diet plans are written down, the root of the issue must be examined. Diet plans must turn into "life plans" if they are to be successful. I was reading about peace and tranquility and found this article.

"A walk through a Japanese garden, watching a gold fish swim in an aquarium, or wading our feet in a pond or lake – tranquility as our mind would imagine it to be; peace and quiet, balance, symmetry, a calming stillness.

But life is truly full of surprises. A shout here, a disturbance there – a scream, a nightmare! Life throws a curve ball when we least expect it and we fail to hit the ball and make the home run.

I thank the Lord for the writer of Proverbs. He doesn’t describe life as tranquil – because it’s not, not in this plane of existence we are in. It is a tranquil HEART that he writes about. You see, when everything around us pulls on every facet of our life, it is what is happening inside of us that matters – it is the “state of our heart” that matters. Real peace and tranquility starts from within our center – the heart. And that is only possible with a heart that is in the Hands of its Creator; a heart that has as its Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Problems and worries, whether physical, emotional, mental or imaginary – even worrying about tomorrow, has a way of weighing down on a person’s body; not only the physical body but the person as a whole. Stress robs a person of strength and will; fear immobilizes a person not to progress but to regress, to waste away. But when a person is at peace within himself, no matter what the external factors or forces may bring their way, the tranquil heart simply radiates and strengthens the individual; it is the filling of the Spirit, the empowerment of its presence, in the life of the Christian; a tranquil heart is a heart submitted to the will of the Lord."

When we make a decision to submit our eating to God's will and not our own, the plan will not be dependent on whether this is a good day to follow our diet.  When our heart is submitted to God's way and not our own, we will not eat a pizza just because we had a bad day. When we are conforming to God's will and not our own, we will have "pre-decided" that no matter what the circumstance we are facing, we will not gorge ourselves on food to handle the stress. Because that is the way the world hanldes it, right? Once again, Romans 12:1-2 states:

 "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

I have a lot more to say about this topic but it can wait until another day. Until then, I present this information to you as one wretched sinner to another, striving to be all that God has called me to be.