BEYOND KNOWLEDGE AND FAITH: EMBRACING THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF OUR BEING

You are home from a trip to a developing country that is more than six time zones away. The journey back to your home country took more than 24 hours, which means you had airline food and slept on the airplane—if we can call that sleep. Once you arrive home, you take one day to rest before diving into all the things you know are waiting for you. Over the next several days, you navigate work, home, and personal appointments while your body is still programmed to the time zone you visited. On this particular day, you lay in bed hoping for more sleep while the clock is reminding you of your fast approaching appointment. You roll out of bed in time to dress and make it your appointment. No time for exercise or food. You leave your appointment in time to get to work, but you don’t even have time for a drive-thru meal. Your day is filled with meetings, along with trying to catch up from your time away. As you walk into the meeting scheduled for noon you grab a protein bar and you check your messages. One message stands out. It is from someone you care for—your disciple, small group member, or close friend. Their child is being taken by ambulance to the hospital. What do you do next?

Today’s topic is strength. Strength is thought of in many ways in our culture. Mental strength and a strong faith are vitally important to our walk with Christ. Yet, I fear that in a quest for understanding and wisdom many Christians have neglected a vital part of our being, the physical body. Much like Gnostics, some Christians live as if the body does not matter, only knowledge and spiritual things matter. In the example at the beginning of this article, you have not had enough rest even though you have done your best to get good rest. You have not eaten well for lack of planning or making time. Most likely, you have not drunk enough water to be well hydrated. You are physically depleted and now you have an opportunity to support your friend emotionally and spiritually. 

God calls the physical body of believers his temple in 1 Corinthians 6.  I think back to when I was a girl. Church was a sacred place. I made sure the wrapper from the hard candy Sister Jones gave me did not end up on the floor. I was taught not to lie in church, although the Ten Commandments we read every Sunday as a congregation taught us not to ever lie. The adults seemed to watch their language in church. From my child’s point of view, it seemed like we thought of the church as the place where God could hear and see everything. Now, my view as a child was skewed, but my point is that the temple of God, the church, was treated with a different dignity and respect than other buildings. If we are the place where God’s spirit dwells, shouldn’t we treat our bodies with dignity and respect?

This realization came to me several years ago. I had dedicated my life to Christ, and vowed to use the gifts he gave me whenever He brought an opportunity. Which meant I needed to be available and ready when an opportunity arose. To be prepared, I needed to become mentally strong by dealing with my past. When I found myself winded doing a simple thing, I determined that I was out of shape and needed to do something about my physical health. I made a visit to a doctor and I began to change my eating and exercise habits. A week or so after that visit, I learned that there were some concerns with my bloodwork. I ended up being physically and mentally lethargic for six months. 

I learned a lot about my body, myself, and God in that time. One thing I came to understand is, “Just as the spirit affects the body, so too the physical body affects the spirit.”1 In other words, we are one person made up of spirit, mind, and body. Many times, we live as if each is its own entity, disconnected from the others. Our minds affect our bodies and consequently our bodies can affect our minds and our spirit. Ask someone who deals with chronic pain if it affects their mood, or their faith walk. 

Strength in our body is important for us to follow God. When our bodies do not function properly it is difficult for us to follow God readily. When we are ailing, we can’t go when God calls us to go. When we are depleted and go, we offer less than we could to God and the people we have the opportunity to serve. If we want to love God and love people well, we must first be well ourselves. 

Hydration, nutrition, movement, and rest are the basis of physical health and many times they are found in lists with suggestions to help improve mental health. Here are some things to consider as you evaluate the state of your temple:

• Hydration: 50 to 70 percent of your body weight consists of water. “Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water to work properly.”2 This means that if you do not drink enough water your body will not function properly. There are several thoughts about how much water to drink a day—eight 8-ounce glasses and half your body weight in ounces are a couple of the popular ones. You can choose one of those or consult with a medical professional.
• Nutrition: Nutrition is about your eating habits—eating regular, balanced meals. Many of us eat what we like because we like it. Food is meant to fuel our body, not only to satisfy our taste buds. Food is meant to supply nutrients to the body to maintain the brain, muscles, bones, immune system, etc.3 Many people have improved their health just by changing their eating habits. Do your eating habits need to change?
• Movement: Many Americans live a sedentary life.  Our work involves desks and computers. Our entertainment involves screens and couches. God gave Adam and Eve work to do in The Garden. I am not sure what that involved since there were no weeds yet, but I am guessing it was physical. 
• Rest: The first thing most of us think of is sleep. Daily sleep is vitally important. “Sleep is truly interdisciplinary because it touches every aspect of health. Sleep is essential to every process in the body, affecting our physical and mental functioning the next day, our ability to fight disease and develop immunity, and our metabolism and chronic disease risk.”4 You should consult a medical professional for how much sleep you need.

I am a strong advocate of observing a longer time of rest called Sabbath. A Sabbath is a 24-hour cease of work that happens weekly. It is a time to delight in God and the gifts he has given you. God set the example by observing a Sabbath after Creation in Genesis 1 and 2. In Exodus 20, God teaches the newly freed Israelites that freed people can and should rest. In Mark 2:27, Jesus says that “the Sabbath was made for man.” If you do not observe a Sabbath regularly, I encourage you to trust God with the things you feel you must do and cease from work to delight in him and the gifts he has given you.

I hope most of you would have chosen to go to the hospital with your friend, as I chose to do. Although it is not physically taxing to sit in a hospital waiting room, it can be emotionally taxing hearing, or not hearing, from the medical professionals about the sick loved one. I learned anew the importance of my physical health in serving God and his people. How are you caring for your body, God’s temple?

[1] Bruce Barton et al., Life Application New Testament Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2001), 665.
[2] Staff, M. C. (2022, October 12). Water: How much should you drink every day? Retrieved from Mayoclinic.org: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256
[3] Nutrition. (n.d.). Retrieved from Harvard Health Publishing Harvard Medical School: https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/nutrition Jansen, E. (2020, March 2). Sleep 101: Why Sleep Is So Important to Your Health. Retrieved from School of Public Health University of Michigan: https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2020posts/why-sleep-is-so-important-to-your-health.html

This post originally appeared at: Beyond Knowledge and Faith: Embracing the Physical Aspect of Our Being — The Bonhoeffer Project.