I saw an article on where the oldest woman died at 116 years and 100 days old. She attributed her longevity to two simple things. 1. Mind your own business. 2. Never eat junk food.
Well, OK, I missed that mark on both accounts once or twice. How about you?
This is what God showed me from this story.
When we mind our own business and do not concern ourselves with getting caught up in other people’s drama, we keep our stress level down.
Now I am not saying not to help out when asked. But sometimes, (and I am talking about me too) we tend to get involved where we have no business. In other words, say you overhear at the watercooler two co-workers gossiping over another co-worker. And what you hear is not very nice. So you go to them and give your two cents worth about how rude and unkind they are.
OK, number 1, they already know that what they are doing is rude and unkind. They don’t need you to tell them. But when you do, you create confrontation with them, and you just raised your stress level which in turn brings your immune level down. So now you have opened a door for sickness of one form or another to creep in.
The next thing is not eating junk food. Well, while she may have been talking about twinkies, cupcakes, and burgers and fries, I also had another thought about junk food — junk food being what we feed ourselves on daily by watching bad reports of news, or listening to things that are not of good report from others. Watching TV programs that have no morals whatsoever. The things we watch and listen to daily are what we are feeding our spirits.
When our Spirit is downtrodden, then we will tend to let our physical body go down as well. When we don’t care enough to take care of our Spirit, then why would we take any better care of our physical self.
Here are a few scriptures to enforce these points.
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life…(keeping our heart healthy keeps the rest of our body healthy).Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you (in other words, if you can’t say something nice, shut up). Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you (keep your eyes on your own business, and stay out of others affairs).Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established (we keep our feet on God’s path and not be so quick as to have swift feet to spread bad news or gossip). Do not turn to the right or left; remove your foot from evil (don’t get involved with taking sides, but stay true to God’s path. (Proverbs 4:23-27)
There are so many scriptures in the word that give us clear guidance on how to live a long and healthy life. We just need to search them out and then meditate on them. The reason I say meditate and not do, is because I do not want to cause anyone to fall under condemnation of the law, thinking they have to do something to receive from the Lord.
Another good point from one of my favorite teachers was that so many times we quote the scripture “be ye doers of the word and not hearers only.” He said we have to be careful that we don’t put people under the law with this scripture, making them think they must do something to receive from God. He put it like this: “God is not moved by need, but responds to faith. We don’t receive by doing but by believing.”
So here it is. If the only way we think we are keeping our bodies strong and healthy is by watching what we eat or physical exercise, then we have put all of our faith in doing instead of believing. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So it would stand to reason that our health comes from believing and trusting in his word and not just from our actions of doing.
When we first take care of our spiritual self, we will have the wisdom to take care of our physical self, and then maybe we too will live out a long healthy life the way God intended us to. Who knows; maybe one day the Guiness Book of World Records will be interviewing you in your 100s.
Where do we find this great wisdom in how to care for our bodies spiritually and physically?
Stay in the word!
For more of Neta Monroe’s columns, go to www.godstidbitstome.blogspot.com.