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Is Your Health a Spiritual Matter? Pastors Weigh In on Food, Faith, and Fitness
52 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez, along with pastors Ridley Barron, Jon Ballard, and Kyle Hess, delves into the topic of how Christians should approach food, health, and the medical industry through a theological lens. The discussion touches on how spirituality intersects with all areas of life, including nutrition, exercise, and the ethics of modern healthcare. They explore the balance between taking care of the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and avoiding the extremes that might distract from spiritual priorities. The conversation also addresses the implications of body enhancements, the role of technology in health, and the importance of rest.
Timestamps:
00:31 Introduction to public theology and the importance of integrating spirituality into all areas of life.
02:26 Discussion on how Christians should think about food and nutrition.
10:30 Concerns about the profit-driven nature of the healthcare industry.
18:08 Exploring the ethics of body enhancements and technology.
22:32 The use of psychedelics in treating PTSD and related issues.
26:46 How Christians can be "all in" when it comes to their health and physical lives.
33:04 The importance of rest and setting boundaries for overall well-being.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Grove Hill Church Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez. And today I'm joined by like our whole men's pastoral staff. Or almost, almost. yeah and We got Ridley, John, and Kyle here. And we're going to be talking about an interesting topic.
What is Public Theology?
00:00:18
Speaker
So I found that there was this category of theology called public theology. And I was really interested in that. It's essentially the idea that a pastor, a pastoral leader and theology should govern All the different areas of life and that a pastor should not just have the liberty of speaking into a spiritual life but into all the different areas of life because theology and spirituality isn't just a category of our lives but is actually a center point a part of our life that touches every other area
Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life and Spiritual Integration
00:00:49
Speaker
of life. I remember a long time ago, I was introduced to this thing called Zig Zigglers wheel of life, right? It's a little tool you can use to evaluate how well you're doing on your life. It's a little wheels cut up into little segments, and you have finance, you have friendships, maybe family, like career, and then you'd have like a little category for your spiritual life. And I always thought that was kind of like,
00:01:11
Speaker
nice little tool, but I'm like, you know but we need to slice this up and put spirituality at the very center, leaking into every other area of life. So with that in mind, I want to kick off a topic that I think I hear a lot of people talk about. But it's not usually a topic that comes by the pulpit, but I think it is something that affects all of our
Food, Nutrition, and Modern Health Implications
00:01:31
Speaker
lives deeply. If if we don't talk about or don't do anything about it, like we all die. And it's the topic of the body and food and what we put into this body.
00:01:41
Speaker
um, Ridley you posted on facebook this fun little like um, Text post that said 90 of food in the grocery stores today didn't didn't exist 90 years ago Guess what else 90 of the diseases we face today didn't either think about that And while I think this post is a little bit of hyperbole, enforcing some statistics, it's it it has has a ring of truth to it because things have been changing over time with what we eat and how we proceed with what we put in our bodies. So I just kind of want to open up to you all, like when it comes to food and nutrition, how does how how do you interpret what what should how should Christians think about food and nutrition and why?
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, I'll start off by saying this. you're You're exactly right about theology touching everything because, you know, our worldview impacts how we perceive the world in every area of the world. Everything from creation to finances to relationships and even how we take care of our bodies. um The Bible says that the body, you know, is the temple, the Holy Spirit. And so everything that you do with your body absolutely has an impact on the way you respond spiritually to God. um and And, you know,
00:02:53
Speaker
Just good stewardship of your body means you take care of it. You don't sit around and become lazy. You don't become sloppy. You don't do good hygiene for yourself. And of course you take care of yourself by doing the responsible thing to eat. And um I will tell you in my time, I mean, I'm not ancient, I'm only 57 years old, but in my 57 years, I think it's become harder to know how to properly take care of your body in this area because all the contrary information that comes at you from so many different sources.
How Should Christians View Health and Nutrition?
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're in it. I think too, I look at examples that were kind of thrown at me starting from childhood and what we as we call ourselves believers, what the example that was set in front of us by our own pastors, you know, there would be this a moral example that would be thrown at us and, you know, theology that would be told in how that we should live. But whenever it came to this aspect of living healthy in a whole, whenever it came to the stuff we put in our bodies, wasn't a good example. And again, I think we try to separate those two things whenever they go hand in hand, we try to compartmentalize things.
00:04:11
Speaker
in an unhealthy way, I think, so many times. But if we're living with theology pressing into every area of our life, you know, there is no, you know, great area. It all comes under the encompassing area of Scripture, and that speaks whether it's health, whether it's finances, family, all the above.
00:04:32
Speaker
I feel like you just naturally move that direction too as you get and more into God's word and you realize that, hey, I want to live a good healthy life. So one, like John's talking about, to be an example of ah what our faith is. But to two, I want to be here as long as I can to be telling people about Jesus. And so if I'm just destroying my body constantly, I'm not being a good steward of what God's given me. um He's got things for me to do. And if I'm sick and at home on the couch because I haven't been eating well. I'm not taking care of my body the way I should be.
00:05:03
Speaker
yeah In the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20, this is the most common verse I hear when it comes to taking care of your body, but it says, do not do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Who is in you? Whom you have received from God. You are not your own, you were bought at a price, therefore honor God with your body. Now that verse in the context has more to do with sexual sin, probably more than anything else, but it's often kind of applied more liberally to just you taking care of your body.
00:05:36
Speaker
Where do you think you can draw the line on this? when when what To what extent do you push yourself to be healthy as a Christian? Is there a limit? is there Can you go too far? or And to what extent, what's the boundary line on one side of like trying to optimize health on one end? It's longevity, trying to live forever is become as is the thing people are talking about now. And to what far on the other end, at what point does it become gluttony? but At what point does it actually become yeah sinful?
00:06:05
Speaker
yeah I want to go back to what you just said about, you know, more more often that passage is applied
Balancing Health and Spiritual Duties
00:06:12
Speaker
to sexual sin. If Paul was that concerned about something that's happened externally to our body, then I think it's a very fair game to apply it to something that's going on internally in our bodies because that has an even greater impact. ah To Kyle's point, the longevity of your life, the longevity of your ability to serve Christ. And so I think everything we've talked about to this point is absolutely true.
00:06:34
Speaker
We have a responsibility, a moral responsibility to take care of what God has given us for the purpose of bringing God glory in the way we we eat, we drink, we exercise, those kinds of things. Can you take it to the extreme? Absolutely. um I think you have to go back even to Paul's writings in rome where Romans where he talks about everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. I have seen Christian people who do not eat well,
00:07:00
Speaker
who exercise to extremes. They look like bean poles. And um you're you're going, okay, I get it. You want to exercise. You want to stay healthy, but five hours a day of that and no time for your Bible. you know you're you're You're kind of screwing things up a little bit, getting your priorities out of whack.
00:07:18
Speaker
So this we think this topic this topic tends to be a ah struggle for me, although I don't look like I'm overweight or anything. My relationship with food is definitely one of the biggest struggles in my life. um If it comes down to stress, I will stress eat. It's not so much eating just a ton of unhealthy food. It's just like quantity of food. I love food. And it becomes a point of where I'm like, okay, why am I doing this? It has nothing to do with nourishing my body.
00:07:47
Speaker
it has to do to feeling fulfilling a need that i have somewhere else and i'm feeling that with with food and so i have to be super mindful of things and i try to take the stance of i get ninety percent of the time so ten percent of the time i could enjoy food.
00:08:03
Speaker
And so i still think that's even wrong because i should be mindful of all the time of knowing that that food is it is for our enjoyment but also for it has a sole purpose of nourishing our body so we can do the lord's word yeah and i think to us keeping the.
00:08:20
Speaker
the thought in mind where the heavenly things are always the full intention of the believer, that that should be our sole priority and that the physical aspect of what we put in our body is a part of the equation. So we just have to keep all those things. There's again, like Ridley was talking about, there's a physical benefit and that just further furthers that thought of how can we do our spiritual walk and our spiritual life a little bit better?
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah. One of the things that Lisa and I have been talking about a lot, cause Lisa is very, very health conscious. In fact, I'd probably be 50 pounds heavier if it weren't for my wife. I'm like Kyle, I just enjoy food. Um, it's well documented how much I love chocolate. So, but yeah you know, just this ability to enjoy life without ah becoming the focus of what you do.
00:09:18
Speaker
I think eating should be a good thing. It should be a joyous thing. I mean, all the way through scripture, even God commanded people to take and eat and enjoy certain things. ah But one of the things at least it has taught me is this concept of food is for sustenance. It's not for your pleasure. You know, if you take it as food is something you you do, eating is something you do just to stay alive rather than eating is something I do when I'm anxious or worried or upset or whatever.
00:09:45
Speaker
then it kind of helps to take away those desires a little bit. And then to take that even further into the spiritual disciplines, it's one of the benefits, not the primary one, but it's one of the benefits of fasting. Fasting reminds you that your sustenance is not the food you eat, it is God who gives you the food that you eat.
Critique of the Healthcare Industry
00:10:05
Speaker
So to take a step away from nutrition and talk more about like a health and medical industry overall, there was a video that went viral maybe two weeks ago. And this is the title of this video that went viral on YouTube. I'm trying to think it's, it's like 10 million views now. And it is a long video. I think it's, it's, it's approaching 50 minutes and it's literally, it says, I was an MIT educated neurosurgeon. Now I'm unemployed and alone in the mountains. How did I get here? It's very interesting video about how this neurosurgeon looked at the,
00:10:35
Speaker
system that he was put into and just felt horrible having to to perform the surgeries over and over again knowing that the reason why he was performing a lot of these surgeries was It made more money for the hospital yep and less because it had actually because it was helpful to the people. Yeah. He helped some people. He's like, but most people would actually get better just if they had eaten well, been in community, slept eight hours, uh, and avoided stress or found a good way to deal with stress and actually exercised regularly. He's like, people wouldn't need spine surgery or neurosurgery or any of the things I provided.
00:11:11
Speaker
like most of the time. So he quit because he couldn't handle it. And regardless of how much he was getting paid or what he should do afterwards. How do you guys currently feel about the current medical system and how how should Christians be thinking about this? Because I felt like in a and we're in a day and age where a lot of trust has been given over to doctors. And I feel like people are starting to question that. I will tell you that years ago when I was traveling and speaking to healthcare workers and and in the industry, a little bit more engaged with them.
00:11:40
Speaker
It was a healthcare care worker who handed me a book, and I cannot remember the name of the book. I was actually just trying to look it up for you, but it was a book exposing the healthcare industry for being a profit-driven industry. If you cross the border into Canada, that's all they talk about is how the healthcare care industry in America is a profit-driven thing.
00:11:59
Speaker
ah There are well done exposés and testimonials of people who've been in the industry much like this guy you're talking about who come out saying they were pressured by higher ups to do surgeries that weren't necessary, to give medicines that weren't necessary, those kinds of things in order to keep driving the profit of the hospital. The Bible the bible is truth and the Bible says very clearly that the love of money is the root of all evil.
00:12:24
Speaker
And I think in my assessment, there are some really, really good people in healthcare today. Still believe that with all my heart, but the industry as a whole has sold its soul for the profits. And um I ah frankly am not one of those who trust the healthcare care industry today to do what it's supposed to do.
00:12:42
Speaker
ah last general care physician. He was a Christian dude and he said all his schooling did was taught him how to treat a symptom, not treat the problem. And he was like greatly disturbed by that because he's watching hundreds of students go through these classes and they're really just shown how to medicate or how to give a medicine to treat a symptom. um His approach was, okay, you have this issue. Where do we go back to find the problem and let's figure out the problem.
00:13:12
Speaker
And one time it was just stress, right? I was having tummy aches or whatever. It ended up being the stress was the symptom. And so it had nothing to do with medication. It had to do with what I was allowing to creep into my life and take over that was causing me that stress. And so self-proclaimed by him that all the classes were kind of geared towards treating those symptoms.
00:13:32
Speaker
I'm imagining, no, not sure, but I'm sure there's funding behind that from some type of large pharmaceutical company saying, this is the direction we're going to put our medical treatments. And, um, it's back to what pastor Ridley said. There's always some type of dollar bill behind, um, decision-making. I think in a wild and crazy way, we've seen it in it, you know, for those who are in their sixties, seventies and eighties.
00:14:02
Speaker
They would be able to tell you that it's wild because it's turned the medical field is turned into such a retail oriented feel. I get to see that some in part because my wife being in health care and.
00:14:18
Speaker
it's turned into one of those things that it feeds the the fast food mentality that is rampant in our culture. And so they want the quick fix of the pharmaceuticals that like you all said, and it feeds the symptom. It just treats the symptom and not the long-term plan of really helping people get to a place of true health. It's just a ah facade kind of thing. So again, we as believers,
00:14:47
Speaker
Same thing in our spiritual walk. We have to understand that it's the long game and, you know, Christ working through us in that long-term process. But same thing with our health. If you're 300 pounds, you're not going to get 200 pounds in a healthy way overnight. That's right. to kind of but where and yeah I was just going to say, most of the illnesses we face today, going back to the thing I put on Facebook,
00:15:17
Speaker
are the combination of one of two things. Number one, we do a poor job of taking care of our bodies. Number two, the food industry like the healthcare industry is driven by profits. And so they have found ways to cheapen the production, the maintenance of food in our country so that they could increase their profit margin. What that's produced is foods that don't take care of our bodies the way they should. For instance, the amount of sugar that's put in foods today that doesn't even have to be there. ah They put it there to enhance taste and basically to get you addicted to their food products. Those two things create the problem and to Kyle's point, you go to a doctor, the doctor doesn't look at you and say, hey, here's the easy fix, eat better.
00:15:58
Speaker
Now they immediately give you a prescription for something. And I had a pharmacist tell me at one of my events, he said, the point of a medication is to make changes to your system, which means that every medicine you take automatically has a side effect to it. yeah So when you give one medicine, that means there's a need for another one to take care of the side effect that was just created by the first one. And so it's like a self-replicating, self-fulfilling kind of thing for the industry.
00:16:26
Speaker
very, very profitable if you're taking regular medications that you have to keep taking in order for it to keep attention, continue working. I will say though, it's easy to vilify the whole industry. There are moments where it shines really brightly, right? When sometimes you have an issue and they do, they diagnose it correctly and then deal with it appropriately. And they appropriate amount of time. I remember Amy had a brain tumor, found it through a routine eye exam.
00:16:51
Speaker
And then it was dealt with two weeks later. And it was like, wow, it was expensive, but you know what? If it hadn't been, it worked, then it worked. And she's like- Well, when healthcare shines, it shines really bright. yeah But to your point, it's become a side effect or a side whatever of of the industry rather than the focus of the industry. I mean, let's face it, one of one of Jesus's closest followers was a physician. Jesus never rebuked him for being a physician because that physician's goal was to heal people.
00:17:22
Speaker
So it's one of those things where you have to weigh it more and ask around and do research and look at an alternative path as well as a medical path in order to try to fix or look at anything.
Ethical Concerns Around Body Enhancements
00:17:34
Speaker
There are some interesting things that are trending that I think are going to become bigger topics we'll hear about in the future. um And that comes with body enhancements.
00:17:43
Speaker
Right? There's many different ways we alter our body. And we just talked about a few, like with medications, if we have issues, but we're starting to get into a place where, you know, technology is moving forward at such a rate that brain implants are becoming a thing. They've had successful trials now with humans putting chips in their brain. And while it seems like an obvious no, it's kind of like, well,
00:18:05
Speaker
It's hard to tell the paraplegic that he can actually do some good. right If they put a chip in his brain and now all of a sudden he can control a computer, which can help him in a number of different ways in his life. You're like, ah like in some cases it doesn't seem all bad, but it seems like a slippery sloper on chip implants, te tech related, but also it goes from that to hormone replacement therapy, which has become a big thing over the last couple of years from helping women regulate hormones to using hormones to catch your appetite, right? It's all over the place. Where do we draw the line as Christians when it comes to modifying our own bodies um in order to live ah healthier lives or in some place cases just a, I don't know, an enhanced life? Big topic. I i was going to let Winnie Yell start, but if you want me to, I will.
00:18:58
Speaker
I think you go back to the very beginning. If Genesis is true, which we believe it is, then we have a holy God with ultimate wisdom who created the world and he created it with intentionality. So you start from that place realizing there are certain things that God does because God wants them done that way.
00:19:17
Speaker
He's going to get glory from it, whatever the case may be. Then you start to to break that down into, okay, what are some things that maybe have been brought about by the sinfulness of man or have been brought by by about by a horrible accident, whatever. I think those are the places where you have permission to step in and try to fix or correct or improve the situation.
00:19:42
Speaker
When you start looking at your body and going, I'm too tall, too short, too whatever. I wish my lips were whatever. That's when you start to go, OK, God, I know better what I should look like than you know what I should look like. So it's that it's a very thin line. It's a very slippery slope. But when you start stepping over into the role that only the creator should play in your life, I think you've crossed a line that's unhealthy.
00:20:06
Speaker
I don't think anybody, at least and I wouldn't, I don't think anybody would question the ability to put a chip in a paraplegic's brain, giving him the ability to operate and function on a better level. I don't think anybody would question that that might be a good thing ah to improve the condition of someone's life that way.
00:20:24
Speaker
but Like you said it's a slippery slope next thing you know we're gonna be putting chips in kids brains to try to improve the brain capabilities to create their their physical function those kinds of things and again that to me is crossing back over into the creator space that he alone deserves. Yeah I think. We're gonna get this. great john I think the methodology obviously changes you know through the centuries. We see things become more effective. We look at the age in the late 1800s, early 1900s, where we saw a massive boom of
00:21:01
Speaker
production just getting better. So we understand that, man, that there's going to be those progressions in humanity. But yeah, at what point I think you have to look to the intention and the desire to each person. Is is there a relationship being pursued ah with Christ in this intention to do whatever, or is it to desire for self gratification?
00:21:31
Speaker
ah And I think that's what we have to ask ourselves. Is it this going to be pleasing to God or is this going to be pleasing just for me, myself and I?
00:21:43
Speaker
I'm going to leave those answers there. Sounds good to me.
Are Psychedelics Ethical for PTSD Treatment?
00:21:50
Speaker
there's There's also this new field emerging that the government's definitely pushing back on, but it certainly has had a lot of interesting case studies of helping people. And that's the use of psychedelics in order to treat things like PTSD. Where do you where do you land on that? Well, you picked some good subjects today. So this is probably going to be a really unpopular answer. I think there is an overemphasis on PTSD today.
00:22:17
Speaker
We blame all kinds of dysfunction on an inability to recover from trauma and inability to recover because my feelings got hurt, inability because I didn't get picked to play kickball in the fifth grade. I mean, we, we blame everything in the world on PTSD. So um I want to start there by saying, I think there are probably way smaller percentages of people who actually suffer from PTSD and anxiety and all of those things. I have not honestly done enough research into the psychedelic side of it.
00:22:46
Speaker
and how well it is, it can function as a treatment, but I can tell you this, it's already being abused. and It's not being used for that sole purpose. I have people I know and love who use psychedelics, and I guarantee it's not because they have PTSD, it's because of the euphoria that comes from those feelings and those kinds of things. So, you know, maybe maybe it's best to just shove that over in that category that Paul was talking about when he said, everything's permissible, but not everything is beneficial for mankind.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, we've gotten into an area where a lot of these things would be beneficial if they were regulated. Yes. And we do regulate a lot of things, but we have to look at who's regulating these things. And so our standard of who the regulator is has gone from, hey, we're doing this for the right reasons to these areas down here. And me personally, I wouldn't want to touch that with a 10 foot pole because I don't necessarily trust the ones bringing that to me, if that makes sense. Totally agree with you guys.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yep. And even on the, even on the regulated things, it becomes problematic, right? I mean, morphine can be addicting opioids. Really problematic. The phrase that comes to my mind is the foxes guarding the chin, the chicken house, you know, you, you.
00:24:03
Speaker
You start out thinking, man, these are good men. They've got great intentions at heart. And before long it's handed off to the government. The government screws up everything it touches. And now you've got 12 year olds doing psychedelics because they got mistreated in fourth grade. I mean, it's a, again, you said slippery slope. I would say it's a very well-greased to slippery slope. So knowing that it's a slippery slope, is it better for Christians to resist that vote in a direction that would say,
00:24:31
Speaker
psychedelics and body enhancements should be illegal. Huh. So here's, here's where I'm going to land on all of this kind of as a, as a place to kind of counts this whole conversation. I think for most of us, Kyle said as well a minute ago, the deeper you get into the word, the less you cling to this world, the less you worry about what do I look like? How well do I function? Those kinds of things, because We realize that the 70 plus, maybe 80 plus years if we're lucky that we are given here are just a blip on the screen compared to the eternity we hope to spend with Christ. So I think there comes a place where as a true follower of Jesus, if you're going deeper and deeper into the word, you quit fighting so hard to feel like you're 25 years old for the rest of your life, you know?
00:25:21
Speaker
I don't need the plastic surgery. I don't need the body enhancement. I don't need the steroid shot. I don't need this. I don't need that. I'm not saying be masochistic and and invite pain on yourself. I'm not saying don't take advantage of a of certain advancements that give us a little bit of relief from things or maybe help us avoid certain problems in our lives. But I think if we kept our minds on heaven as much as Paul kept his mind on heaven,
00:25:49
Speaker
ah We'd find a shorter line at the plastic surgeon office. That's a good tie-in. I was going to kick this off, and now I'm going to finish it with a tie-in to the sermon from this Sunday. But you laid down a challenge in the sermon, as you often do. Not uncommon. Thanks. For you to essentially fork fork the road for others.
00:26:10
Speaker
And a big point that I caught in the sermon was essentially for Christians to not be half-hearted, to not be half-end, to not just be in on Sundays, to to be all in. But I think it begs the question, and I'm going to ask the question here for this part of our lives when it comes to a body, when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to medicine and how we live our lives physically. What does it look like to be all in or what steps can a Christian take in order to lay this part of their life down and surrender?
00:26:42
Speaker
I've spoken first on every question and let these two guys go first and I'll jump in on it. So I'm thinking you do have to use common sense and be reasonable about it too. The the going saying used to be when you go into a grocery store, the healthiest stuff was on the perimeter because you have what do you have? You have other refrigerated sections with the the fruit and the meats and different things like that and to stay away from the center with all the processed food and packages.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yep. But where do you draw the line now? Because we have so many genetically modified things. We have meats that are being injected with chemicals to make them last longer. um And so we also have to be somewhat reasonable. Now, me personally, and my my family, we kind of bring things back towards home where my wife makes bread and we, you know, there's plenty of people in our church that grow their own chickens and grow their own chickens, raise their own chickens.
00:27:30
Speaker
But you could, you could be smart and reasonable, but you also have to have some understanding that there's a lot of stuff out there. You're being fed and you're not going to be able to eliminate it all, but just to be conscious of it. And obviously we're not eating McDonald's three meals a day and and just burying ourselves. But we have, we have a goal here and it's not to lose sight of what God has us here for. And so that should be our primary goal. And if we're.
00:27:58
Speaker
on a missions trip and Burger King's the only thing to eat, then we're not going to just starve ou ourselves for that meal, we're going to take in some food. So um just to be reasonable about it all, I'd say it would be a good place to starve. Yeah, I would say the same thing in addition to that is realize that you're not going to be able to go from zero to a hundred as far as your fitness journey. Again, slow steps, gradual steps in this process. I think one of the evident things in in my own life, and I think probably
00:28:30
Speaker
every American, you could probably say that we have been brought indoors in the last 50, 60 years. yeah If we would get outside and take time to just be active for 30 minutes, an hour a day, how we would see some things turn. I think, again, it plays into so many other parts of how our kids are raised, they' how it kind of expands their ability physically and spiritually.
00:29:00
Speaker
with with parents, personal lives, all that. So yeah, I think that's just another practical areas. Be active. Yeah. I think both of you are you know hitting right on the head the the solution for this because, you know, my wife always tells me, if you can't go outside, hunt it, collect it, raise it, grow it, gather it, whatever, then we probably need to avoid it. Nowhere in scripture at least in the New Testament, once we get past the Old Testament limitations, nowhere does God ever say, avoid eating anything. Why? Because at that point they were eating things that God had provided and given them. Mankind has messed up most of the foods that we eat.
00:29:39
Speaker
ah To John's point, we've been given these amazing machines called human bodies. Turn off the TV, put down the cell phone, go for a walk with your dog, go outside and throw the ball with your son. I mean, if you got to go anywhere, go to the state park. We got a beautiful state park down the road from us. Go walk a half a mile a day or something just to get some exercise, get moving. Recent research shows that every time you flex your muscles, it actually releases a chemical that gives the feeling of joy.
00:30:09
Speaker
So if you're laying on your recliner all day long, you're not getting that feeling and you're going to start to feel overwhelmed about life. But if you get up and move your body and and if nothing else, get outside and enjoy God's creation. You find a greater appreciation for what God has done by looking at a grasshopper or watching a cat crawl on a fence or or watching a sunset. There's all kinds of ways that you learn to grow in your intimacy with God. And all those things create this greater overall sense of personal, emotional, physical health and wellbeing.
00:30:39
Speaker
and And John said this, and it's true, one of the things they're saying more and more is that part of the reason our bodies are so bad is because we've created something phenomenal and never known before in the world known as indoor pollution.
00:30:51
Speaker
We're living inside of tightly knit houses that have all kinds of chemicals from our carpet to our paint, to our furniture, to the stuff that's in our air conditioner.
Concluding Thoughts on Honoring God with the Body
00:31:00
Speaker
And so our bodies are constantly consuming things that the body was never intended to have in it. So get outside, breathe the fresh air, as fresh as it can be this day and age, and enjoy this world that God's given you. If the Lord is the Lord of our lives, He's certainly the Lord of our physical bodies, which is why we should honor Him with what we eat, how we sleep,
00:31:21
Speaker
how we take care of the gift that he's given to us. Because if we do, if we do, we can make the most of our time when we're awake yeah to serve him and to serve others. And I think that's the whole point. We take care of this gift of a body he's given us so that we can use it to serve others. And it's hard to do that if you're always sick or always in pain or always tired from not taking care of it. Hey, can I get one other thing in there? I know you're trying to bring this to a close, but I think I got to say this. Sorry.
00:31:52
Speaker
You know, the pastor's always got one more thing to say. ah One of the things I have discovered just because of my own personal struggles with this is that many of the problems we experience with our bodies is because we do not rest like we're supposed to. ah There's a reason why God gave us a day of Sabbath, but Sabbath doesn't have to be limited to a day. Going to bed and getting up at the same time every day is critical. Getting good night's sleep is critical. It allows your body to reset, your brain to unload, all those kinds of things. so A great place to start is saying, you know what? I'm going to quit staying up late and watching the late night movie. I'm going to quit staying up and watching the ballgame until the 12th inning is over with. I'm going to set some real boundaries for myself. Boundaries are always a good thing and get my body onto a real good cycle of sleep so that I can rest and be prepared for what God has next in my journey. Oh, fantastic. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining me today. My pleasure.