Do you ever ask your self if you are healthy? You’ve probably noticed our world obsession with health and well-being has increased dramatically. When googling the question “Are you healthy?” there were 713,000,000 results in less than one second. There are books and videos on everything from diet, to workouts, to attitudes. There are apps and web-sites that can help us with when and how we eat, and put us on a better path for mixing diet and exercise into our lives. “Personal Trainers” yielded 48,000,000 in less than a second. If one approach doesn’t work for you, there are easily a million more that might.
3John 2 “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” 1Tim. 4:8 “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.” These verses reinforce the idea of being in good health is desirable. While it is genuinely desirable it may not be worthy of becoming your primary focus in life. In the first verse we see that health and prosperity should track congruently with our soul’s health. In the next verse it is profitable but there are other things far more important. Should we be thinking of “healthy” as a means to an end, instead of treating it like it is an end in itself? I believe “healthy” needs a larger reason to justify the time and effort to maintain it. The healthiest of us likely have that reason driving their varied disciplines and choices. The more unhealthy of us, may very well lack the necessary focus or reason to be healthy.
When your soul, (your mind, will, and emotions), is healthy it is likely to produce sustainable physical well-being, or at least the capacity to be as physically as healthy as possible. “Why do you want to be healthy?” now becomes a very relevant question. A Johns Hopkins study on heart patients concluded that without working on getting the inside healthier, not even a close encounter with death would yield sustainable change. At the time of this study researchers were surprised by that result. People need to resolve why they eat and act in a way they know is detrimental to their health. A close brush with death doesn’t change things for very long if at all, in the 90% of situations. If there was a “healthy doughnut” that tasted and looked as good as the other doughnuts maybe we would choose it. In the NFL some athletes have weight and date bonuses in their contracts. If they weigh a certain amount on a specific date they get a bonus. Apparently the idea of just being in better health isn’t enough motivation for them either.
Am I healthy in my soul might turn out to be a better question. Jesus offers the seed of the answer in John 15:1-9. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. He’d love for all of us to bear abundant good fruit. Is He the focus of our lives? If He is, then He is able to bring forth abundant life in and through us.
Father, You are the vinedresser, and we need Your work in our lives more than we’d like to admit. Bring us into a healthier connection with Your Son, by the working and power of Your Spirit. Amen!