Our Best Life, Step 3: Health and healing

Previously (link), we found this working definition of a person’s “Best Life”:

              A long, fulfilling life characterized by health and well-being.

We also discovered that God has given us a clearly defined path to a life that meets this description.  King Solomon addressed this in the proverbs he wrote for his sons.  These wisdom sayings would lead his children to the “Best Life” they desired, but only if the steps were applied:

Proverbs 3:1-2
My son, don’t forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commands;
for they will bring you many days, a full life, and well-being.

King Solomon’s Best Life teaching involves both Do’s and Don’ts…sometimes within the same teaching, in order to provide contrast.  His first step involved our reputation (link).  His second step looked at how we can make sure our lives are heading in the right direction (link).  Now we’ll look at his third step, and it’s about a topic that is as popular today as it was during King Solomon’s time: our health and healing.

Whether we’re dealing with a specific medical condition or we’re just navigating the changes to our health that comes as we age, it constantly feels like our Best Life is in conflict with the way our body is behaving.  King Solomon’s prescription for healing might not be the first one we think of, though:

Proverbs 3:7-8
Don’t be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
This will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones.

First off, his statement don’t be wise in your own eyes is one we can all agree on (but we can also all admit to being guilty of).  We don’t have all the answers to our lives – we aren’t capable of having a completely objective assessment of where we are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.  We’re biased…and tend to lie to ourselves about the deficiencies and troubles we don’t want to deal with. 

However, this is where King Solomon’s advice takes an unexpected twist.  We agree that we shouldn’t be wise in our own eyes…but instead of telling us to go to a doctor or follow the advice of the general community…he gives us a two-part direction: fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

Now, doing both these two parts…this is where many of us get hung up.  We have a tendency to do one well, but ignore the other.  Do you see yourself in either of these descriptions?

We fear the Lord, but we don’t turn away from evil:
We know that God is real and want to take Him seriously, so we go to church and give money and go to Christian concerts and do other Christiany things…but we keep little sins off to the side and all to ourselves.  We give Him our religious actions, but we don’t allow Him into our lives.  We look good from the outside, but deep down…our soul feels dirty, our glossed-over emotions are out of whack, and our mental health is really suffering from keeping up the “almost-perfect” façade.

We turn away from evil, but we don’t fear the Lord:
When we go this route, we try to fool ourselves that it’s all ok if we’re just a good person.  We grit our teeth and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps…we vow to stop doing bad things and try to be nice to everybody.  But we don’t take God’s counsel and direction into consideration, we just assume we can figure out the rest on our own.  This also eats away at us internally, because we know we can’t keep up the “goody-two-shoes” act forever.

Both of these approaches leave us wise in our own eyes.  We get the fear the Lord direction confused with “be scared of the bogeyman-God” instead of what it really means – to have reverent respect for who God is and His authority in our lives.  From this right relationship with God, we are inclined to turn away from evil – not just because “God said ‘No!’” but rather because we understand and trust that He knows what is best for us in each season of our lives.

Fearing the Lord and turning from evil – THIS is what King Solomon says will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones.  I find it interesting that the phrase healing for your body literally translates to “healing for your navel”.  As humorous as that sounds, we can all agree that when your gut’s off, everything’s off.  When we’re emotionally or mentally twisted in knots, our guts and our body are right there with us – we feel physically terrible when our mind, emotions, or spirit is in anguish. 

We might try to avoid our internal suffering by distracting our minds or indulging our instant-gratification desires…but our body knows the truth, it doesn’t lie to us.  Our gut reacts to the thoughts we think and choices we make.

Health and healing are available, but we need to be in a right relationship with our Creator to get there.  King Solomon isn’t saying that God is a means to an end of having a healthy, whole person…rather he’s saying that the healing for your body and strengthening for your bones is a natural by-product of our relationship with God and our willingness to do what He says, especially when it comes to turning away from evil.

Do you find yourself only going halfway with King Solomon’s advice?  If so, be honest with God about where you are and what you feel.  Say it out loud, no matter how hard it feels to do so.  That’s the first step in the healing you know you need.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

I was a bad neighbor. And I was embarrassed.

I was convinced that he saw me as a bad neighbor.  At least, I was pretty sure it was him. 

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were preparing our house to host a barbeque for a group of friends.  We had the typical “get ready for company” agenda: clean this, find a new place for that, make room for additional seating, buy last minute items.  We weren’t 100% sure what the weather would be like, and there was a strong possibility that we’d be spending time outside.  Let’s just say that I had let the outside upkeep chores slide a little bit over the previous month or two. 

So the day before the party, I was outside pulling weeds, trimming bushes, and weed-whacking all the hard-to-mow spots.  One chore I had put off for a while was trimming the grass that had grown up over the curb.  We live on a corner lot in our neighborhood, and one side had grown over quite a bit.  I didn’t realize how much until I started going at it with the weed-whacker.  It took some time and a fair bit of trimmer line to get that side shored up.  It was a mess, too.  I’m glad I was wearing jeans and safety glasses, because stuff was blown everywhere.

I went back to the garage and got distracted with something else.  I cleaned up the tools I had left around the yard and went on to some other chore.  Just before I went back inside, I thought, “Do I need to clean up the trimmings from the curb?  Nah, it’s just little stuff.  It’ll blow away.”  I then went on with my day, getting other parts of the house ready for the party.

The next morning I got up and took our dog out early for a walk.  As we turned the corner, I didn’t see many of the trimmings in the road…instead, there were four or five piles of trimmings placed back in our lawn.  I internally groaned, “Oh no.  Someone cleaned up after me and put them back where I’d be sure to see them.  I bet they were cussing me out the whole time they were scooping these things up.  Way to make the neighborhood look bad.  Jerk can’t even pick up after himself.”  The most likely person to do this would be my neighbor across the street.  We’ve barely talked over the years, so I’m not sure of his attitude or opinion of me.  He’s never been unfriendly, but we haven’t been friends.  Feeling completely embarrassed, after I finished walking our dog, I cleaned up the piles and then hosted the party that afternoon.

Throughout the days that followed, I wondered how much I had made him mad.  I wondered if he held a grudge or at least thought less of me as his neighbor.  It seems a bit silly as I type this out, but I mentally beat myself up over this.  I felt embarrassed each time I walked our dog past his house, thinking things like: The trimmings weren’t small.  I should have remembered better.  Or, at least I should have checked before going back inside.  Why was I so selfish thinking it was ok to leave them?  How could I leave a mess for someone else to clean up?

About two weeks after the party, I was walking our dog and my neighbor happened to be outside.  Swallowing my pride, I flagged him down.  I asked if he was the one who put the trimmings back in my yard.  He said that he had.  I apologized for leaving such a mess, and that I had spent these weeks assuming that he believed he had a jerk for a neighbor.  To my surprise, he smiled and said, “Oh no, I was just trying to help you.  I’ve gotten a letter before from our HOA about my lawn growing over the curb and didn’t want you to get a letter, either.  I just do what I can to help keep our neighborhood cleaned up.”  He then extended his hand to shake mine, showing that he had no hard feelings.  While shaking his hand, I realized that I had been completely wrong about his motives and attitude. 

In Paul’s first letter to the believers in Corinth, chapter 13 is famously known as “The Love Chapter.”  We’re all familiar with the love is patient, love is kind phrases that begin a long list of what love is and what love isn’t.  However, in the middle of the chapter is a verse that often trips people up:

1 Corinthians 13:7
[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

It’s the believes all things part that seems confusing.  Other translations render the phrase as trusts all things – and that kinda helps, but it kinda doesn’t.  A helpful explanation is found in the Holman New Testament Commentary:

Perhaps this characteristic of love is best expressed in contemporary English idiom as: “Love gives the benefit of the doubt.”  Suspicion and doubt toward others do not indicate affection or love.  On the contrary, when someone loves with Christlike love, he entrusts himself to the persons he loves time and again.  Still, love does not demand that a person trust even when the basis for trust has been destroyed.  Love does not give the “benefit” when there is no “doubt.”  In these circumstances trust is folly.  Yet, the general practice of those who love is to trust the good intentions of others as much as possible.

I had spent those two weeks doing the opposite of loving my neighbor.  My neighbor has never given me any reason to think he would be hostile or mad at me, but it didn’t even cross my mind that he could actually be trying to help me.  All the tension I felt between us was caused by my embarrassed feelings and imagination…because I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

It’s just another step for me to learn how to love my neighbor as myself.  I hope you’re taking those steps, too.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Olympic-sized choices

Every two years, we are treated to a spectacle of human effort, strength, and determination.  Both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games have an incredible ability to draw us in.  We see athletes who have put in years – even decades – of effort into their skills and honing their craft.  We are introduced to these country representatives through interviews, old family videos, and personal stories.  Invariably, we hear about their dedication, toughness, and desire.  These individuals have mastered their bodies and minds to achieve peak human condition in order to compete at the highest level with others who have done the same.

The Olympic Games remind us that physical competition is not a modern society invention, as we humans have a strong desire to be the best at something.  Humans have always gone to great lengths to prove our prowess in a given competition or setting.  

The Apostle Paul noted the efforts and dedication of ancient athletes in his letter to the church in Corinth:

1 Corinthians 9:24-25
Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way to win the prize.  Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything.  They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.

Invariably, you’ll find a preacher who, on a Sunday during the modern 17-day Olympic event, points to this Scripture and says, “See?  As incredible as their athletic achievements are, in the end, useless. Their crowns are perishable.  They won’t last.  These people have wasted their time on temporal success.”

This kind of interpretation assumes that the athletes are not believers, and they are strictly driven by self-centered goals.  However, when reading the passage as a whole, in the context of the entire letter, it’s difficult to claim that in these four sentences, Paul’s aim was to put the athletes down for their efforts.

In the previous verses, Paul discussed the importance of winning for him.  His said that his aim was to meet people where they were, regardless of their background or societal standing, in order to share the gospel message – that Jesus gives eternal life to all who believe in Him for it.

1 Corinthians 9:22-23
I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.  Now I do all this because of the gospel, so that I may share in the blessings.

Right after this, Paul uses the runners-striving-to-win-the-race comparison we looked at already.  Instead of putting down these athletes, Paul says we should imitate their tenacity and dedication as we strive to receive an imperishable crown.

And don’t let anyone tell you that this imperishable crown is going to heaven when you die.  This crown is clearly earned, and Paul says he makes his effort so that I may share in the blessings.  Crowns in the ancient games gave the one who earned them status, rewards, and special access to both events and royalty.  If that’s what a perishable crown is worth…how much more valuable would an imperishable crown be?

Continuing the athletic metaphor, Paul then reveals his training regimen:

1 Corinthians 9:26-27
So I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air.  Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

No athlete, after putting so much time and effort into their training, wants to be disqualified from the contest.  A “DQ” means they miss the opportunity to earn the victor’s crown and, as a result, cannot receive the benefits that crown would have given them access to.

Since Paul wants to share in the blessings of an imperishable crown, he makes intentional choices about how he spends his time, where his focus lies, and how he treats his physical body.  Paul is giving the Corinthian believers (and us!) an example to follow in order to run in such a way to win the prize.

So…how’s your training going?

To be honest with you, mine’s not going so well…and I didn’t even realize it.  I really like strategy/puzzle games.  Recently, I found a new game to play on my phone.  I was doing just fine, playing the levels at my own pace.  And then they started an open contest, to see who could complete a certain task the most number of times within a time limit.  So I jumped right in and started playing away.  Surprising myself, I came in first.  On the next contest, I came in first again.  And I did it again – three wins in a row.  I don’t personally know any of the people I was competing against, but I won, and by sizeable margins. 

However, I received a real shock this last Sunday.  My phone keeps track of how much time I spend on each app and then gives me a weekly report.  Guess how much time I spent on the game this past week?  It was over 15 hours.  Sure, I won – a lot.  What did I win?  More boosters so I could continue to play the game.  Nothing tangible.  Nothing sharable.  Certainly nothing of eternal value.

App games are fine, but do I really need to spend 15 hours on them in one week?  Doing the math – that’s 32.5 DAYS per year.  If I continue on my current pace, I will spend an entire month of this year playing a game on my phone. 

What good could I do with half that time? 

We become good at whatever we spend most of our time doing.  Want to be a better athlete?  Spend time training.  Want to be promoted in your job?  Spend time doing your current job well and work to get the additional skills or education you need to move up.  The more TV we watch, the more proficient we become at it. 

Want to be more like Jesus?  Get out and love on people, especially people you don’t routinely hang around. 

Want to earn eternal rewards?  Make disciplined choices with your time, your focus, and your priorities.  Meet people where they are and tell them about Jesus’ free gift of eternal life. 

And don’t become disqualified because you were distracted.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Avoiding spiritual distractions

We are spiritual beings.  That’s how God made us.  So naturally, we gravitate toward the spiritual aspect of life.  We look at design in nature and recognize that there must be a designer.  We observe the happenings around us and acknowledge that there is more going on than only what we can see with our eyes.  We read history from God’s perspective and marvel at His-story.

However, since we are also fallen and sinful, our understanding of spiritual topics is easily knocked off course. 

Human history is littered with wrong ideas about God, what He is like, and how we can know Him.  Before we came to know Jesus, our internal desire for “spiritual things” led us down all sorts of paths.  The difficulty, then, becomes what we will do with our old understandings in light of our relationship with Jesus?

The believers in Paul’s day had the same issues.  Ephesus was a magnificent, melting-pot metropolis.  In that town there were numerous Greek gods and goddesses – the people not only worshiped them, but also told stories, explained their history, and held festivals in their honor.  The Jewish community had many fantasy stories of angels and how to manipulate them, as well as various speculative “biographies” of Biblical characters.

These are the kinds of topics Paul wants Timothy to tackle head-on.

1 Timothy 1:3-4
As I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach other doctrine or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. 

These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith.

The Greek word for pay attention was used to convey the word picture of bringing a ship to land.  It was also used to describe how a person is attached to someone or something, with a level of devotion or even addiction.

One of Timothy’s goals was to weed out these false ideas about God and correct the people’s fascination with myths and endless genealogies.  It wouldn’t be easy.  Some of these myths were quite popular in the culture.  Some Jews would trace their tribal heritage as proof of personal importance or value to God.

However, Paul nails down the problem with focusing on these things – they promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan.  Paul knew they couldn’t walk with God while deceiving themselves with feel-good stories or puffing themselves up with information about their lineage.  The mythical stories detracted or even contradicted God’s story.  The genealogies put the focus on them, rather than on God.  Instead, the Ephesian believers were in danger of missing the point – our relationship with God and our ability to live rightly before Him only comes through a faith that is focused on God.

However, on rare occasion, Paul would reference that a philosopher correctly identified a spiritual truth (Acts 17:28), yet this acknowledgment was stepping stone to point others toward Jesus.  He didn’t dwell there.  To continue the word picture – Paul didn’t dock his ship on the philosopher’s point.  Instead, as he continued on in his message, Paul then dropped anchor on the truth of the resurrection (Acts 17:31).

We see this same tendency toward distraction in the modern church as well.  There’s a fascination with stories of people who have gone to Heaven and come back.  There’s wide-spread speculation about angels and an abundance of feel-good stories.  We look for “Bible codes” and try to match up prophecy with the newspaper.

Whenever the next “big thing” comes through Christian-living literature, we must ask ourselves: Does the author promote empty speculations or God’s plan?  Where will we choose to drop our anchor?

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Thwarted maturity

There is one word that strikes fear into the heart of every athlete.  As soon as the referee says this word, all their work, effort, and productivity comes to a screeching halt.  Having this word applied to you feels like a death sentence, and the stigma attached to it – especially when others find out – is equally crushing.

The last thing any athlete wants to hear is that they have been disqualified.  You can critique their form, give them low marks for execution, or even penalize them for their errors; but when an athlete is DQ’d, the competition, for them, is over.  To be disqualified is to be declared ineligible for the prize.

Earlier, Paul explained to the believers in Colossae that Jesus intends to take them from salvation to full maturity.  Our salvation is certain because it depends on Jesus.  However, Paul said that reaching maturity had some limiting factors based upon our choices and actions; there were conditions involved. 

Colossians 1:21-23
And you were once alienated and hostile in mind because of your evil actions.  But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him – if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

The word if shows that they can be disqualified from reaching full maturity.  A few paragraphs later, Paul explains how it can happen.

Colossians 2:18-19
Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.  He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God.

In Paul’s day, Jewish Occultism encouraged prayer to angels for protection, deliverance, or assistance.  They also believed that praying to the “right” angel was needed to thwart the advances of demons who were in charge of particular aliments of the body or problems in the home.  Additionally, the local Greek folk tradition placed significance on visionary experiences in connection with their spiritual practices.  Before we scoff at such primitive ideas, we need to remember that we come across similar teachings within Christianity when people are told to pray to their “guardian angel” or to a particular “saint” for protection.

Paul’s point is that these kinds of beliefs about angels and surface-level practices undermine Jesus’ authority in our lives.  Running to “angels” or “saints” or “visions” shows that we don’t think Jesus can handle what we’re dealing with at the moment.  How can we say that Jesus is the King of the Universe, but then look somewhere else for our well-being?

It’s these kinds of self-contradictions that shift us away from the full maturity Christ desires to develop in us.  We must remember it is not certain that, at the end of all things, we will be presented as holy, faultless, and blameless before Him.  If we are pronounced disqualified, then we are sure to miss out on some eternal rewards and opportunities to serve with Christ in eternity future.  

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get hung up on ascetic, good-looking practices that, in the end, pull us away from His plan for us.  However, we are not without help.  Jesus told His disciples to “Remain in Me” (John 15:4), not “remain in My angels” or “remain in visions”.  The One who was the start of our faith is the One who will mature it as well.  So let’s continue to trust Him and hold tight to Him.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Conditional goals

What is our goal as parents?  We spend 18ish years feeding, clothing, nursing, caring, teaching, testing, training, guiding, and living with our children.  While the “goal for today” may look different from last year’s “goal for today”, there is also a long-term target that we are trying to make sure they hit.

We don’t often verbalize what that “active-parenting-is-done-end-game” goal looks like.  Truthfully, the busyness of the moment makes it easy to forget that we’re aiming toward anything other than survival.  However, if we were to list out what we desire for our kids to be like when they finally become adults, it would probably look something like this:

I want them to be healthy, active members of society.  I want them to love God and others, and to be growing in both of those areas.  I hope they have a “good” career that uses their talents.  I really want them to be happy with their life/spouse/family/etc.

These are all good dreams for us to have for our children.  But it’s not very often that these ideas are forefront in our minds, especially as they get older.  I have to wonder, though, if we don’t think about this goal as much, not because of the busyness – but because we’re worried they may not be 100% ready when the time comes. 

No matter how well we parent, no matter how pure our love is, and no matter how spot-on our advice is – our kids’ lives could still be derailed by their own choices.  Lots of things in this world are ready to be distractions or disruptions: unhealthy relationships, various addictions, rejection of God, rejection of family, wasting of talents, etc.  But those are the reason WHY we parent them.  We give them guidance, love, direction, opportunities, and education so they CAN reach their full potential.

It’s no wonder we do these things – since God does the same with each of us.  Once we have been born again, we become part of God’s family, and He has a plan to mature each one of us.  He has an incredible end-goal in mind for what our full potential looks like.  Paul pointed this out in his letter to the believers at Colossae.  Look for God’s goal for them, but also be on the lookout for what will help them reach that goal:

Colossians 1:21-23
And you were once alienated and hostile in mind because of your evil actions.  But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him – if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

God the Father has reconciled you…to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him.  That goal is a HUGE change from where I’m currently at.  But looking back on my life, I can see that I’m closer now than I was when I became a Christian.  God’s been patiently working on me, and I trust that He will continue to do so, all the while aiming for His goal in my life.

But we both know that I’m susceptible to distractions and disruptions.  I can be my own worst enemy.  I could derail God’s plan to mature me if I rebel and disregard His leading and direction in my life.  That kind of behavior wouldn’t mean that I’m not part of the family – instead it would mean that God would have to address my rebellion before getting back to developing my maturity.

That’s why Paul says that God’s goal for believers – to be shown as holy, faultless, and blameless before Him – is conditional.  Some of us won’t make it to full maturity.  That’s why Paul prays that the believers may walk worthy of the Lord (1:10).  That’s why Paul says his goal is that we may present everyone mature in Christ (1:28).  These things may happen…they may not.  Throughout the rest of the letter, Paul warns the Colossians about other distractions and how to keep step with God and His aim for us.

However, Paul’s best advice comes in verse 23.  We will be able to reach full maturity if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

Our starting point is also our anchor.  The hope of the gospel – Jesus coming to earth to save us when we couldn’t save ourselves – is what grounds us.  Just as we trust God for salvation, we must also trust Him for our maturity.

Keep Pressing,
Ken