Dumbbells, Walkers and Spiritual Health

by Michael Spyker

People have a body, a soul and a spirit. These interact and affect each other. A toothache definitely depresses the spirit not to mention what it does to the soul. An emotionally troubled soul will influence bodily health negatively. The health profession explains that most illnesses are psychosomatic, which means they find their origins in the soul and spirit. We know what the body is like with its five senses. The reality of spirit in ourselves is far more of a mystery and mostly beyond our normal awareness. You could say that the soul is that part of me that is aware of me as a person. It receives its messages from the body, like the toothache or the nice taste of a cup of coffee. The spirit also influences the soul but in more obscure ways. Your attitudes for instance reside in your spirit. Still, your soul is ever so aware of them. When someone says that we are deep waters, that's exactly correct. A depressed spirit is always debilitating to soul and body. Sometimes to the point that a person's soul decides it's had enough and commits suicide. It's not just the spirit here that brings on the disaster. Depression can be the result of a chemical imbalance in the body. It shows how unavoidably body, soul and spirit are interwoven.

   Of course not all needs to be negative. The buzz of a great excitement can lift a person to heights of pleasure. But whether a particular excitement is actually healthy for a person depends on the nature of it. What a person considers to make life worthwhile is important here. Many people are quite happy to settle for excitements that may be dubious in allowing for psycho-spiritual health. The problem is, who's to tell anyway what is good for you? Some things are obviously bad, like substance abuse. Still, what about the rest? What kind of behavior is helpful and what is not? How selfish may I be, for instance? What shall I decide?

   It is my answer to this very question that will determine what kind of life I am aiming for. I will have to find the best ideas on how a modern person should live. The suggestions are plentiful and come from many sources. Will it be my peers, society and the media? Is that where I will get my wisdom and examples from? Or academia with its many streams of philosophical thought? Might it be religion? Religion, that is both philosophical and spiritual.

   My own answer to this is partly practical and partly a step of faith. It is practical in that I have experienced over the years how Christianity has made me a psycho-spiritually healthy and balanced person. At least that's what those close to me care to say. Relationally it has developed me as okay to be with. I feel integrated in spirit, soul and body. That's the practical side.

   The step of faith has been to accept that if Jesus is the Son of God, willing to help me, he would know how things work best in life and I should follow that. It means finding out what the Bible has to say about living well. Not because the Church tells me so, though there is good advice to be found in those quarters, but because the Holy Spirit within me creates an awareness of the way to go which of course will be in line with the wisdom of God's Word. The more I have grown into the person I am meant to be, the one I'd like to be, the happier I have become. It hasn't always been easy. But that's enough about me; now let's have a look at wellbeing from a different angle.

   You may have come across the idea that 'Jesus saves.' One young man once interpreted this written on a billboard as Jesus having a bank account, and he should do the same. It was good advice, he thought. That's words and messages for you. 'Jesus saves' means something quite different. It is related to becoming personally whole. It's an invitation into true wellbeing. If you have come across the concept of 'being saved' before, it may not necessarily have been introduced like I do here. Rather you may have been approached by people highlighting your failings, calling you a sinner, a baddy. They may have said it friendly enough but the message was clear. It's not always a helpful word that, sinner. When I became a Christian I couldn't relate to it at all. I wasn't that bad, surely.

   You must be saved from your sins, the Church proclaims. That's exactly right, but sin and what it biblically means must be understood in full. Sin is an utterly destructive dynamic that is ingrained into all of creation at its deepest level. It reaches far deeper than people's ability to choose between good and evil. That is merely sin at a personal level and very important, of course. But at a deeper level sin isn't personal at all. It's way beyond human consciousness. From that deepest level originates the power by which everything in nature finally succumbs to death, including humans. It's negativity galore and opens people up to discouragement and depression. It's the level that makes you give up on your exercises in the gym. Or any other dynamic in your life that drives you down. It is from this, that all pervading destructive power and the deepest level of evil, that Jesus came to set us free - to save us. Now that's a salvation of a kind that's worth reaching out for. It is truly divine.

   Of course, once I understand the magnitude of what Jesus has done, I should be the first to admit that yes, me too, I am under that power of death. Of course I am. Its negativity bothers me every day. I need help.

   I'm also willing to admit that personally I have made quite some mistakes in life; I have sinned - so to speak. Of course I have. Lord please don't hold that against me. He doesn't, when I own up honestly. He has no axe to grind. I am most welcome in his presence.

   Now here comes a major truth never to be forgotten. Make sure you get your head around it, to accept it in your heart. 'Because I follow Jesus sincerely, my history as a human being has been fully transposed into the New Reality that Jesus came to usher in, the one in which sin no longer exists. There can be no record there of me living under the power of sin on earth, nor of the mistakes I made, because in that New Reality sin isn't known as a possibility. My sins have been forgiven!' When God looks at me I am seen as a person placed into the New Reality exclusively, the old has disappeared. I am free; I need not feel guilty or anxious at all before God. All because of what Jesus came to do. Now there is a salvation for you! It's true, a mystery and it's wonderful.

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