Each year we make resolutions. It’s the same thing. Not for us, but for those who advertise they have the best idea for a fresh start to living healthy. There is no limit to who promotes their business with this theme in the month of December. Even some pastors pull this out in their final sermon series or their new ones for the first of the year. The crazy thing is we get drawn in. Often easier than we would like we find ourselves buying new memberships, diet or healthy living plans, or some self-help program. Do you ever wonder why?
I have a few thoughts for you. The first is that we have this subconscious belief that we need to be changed. A nagging that maybe if we shift some small physical or mental thing about ourselves, we will live better. The second, we are not really at peace with who we are because we don’t have a truly clear picture of who the real self is. Lastly, that we have, once again, a subconscious belief that this might be the one thing to help us find happiness.
Will you stay with me just long enough to hear what I have to say in response? I tend to think we have innate responses to competition because of several reasons one of which is very prideful, the other has to deal with a natural desire to be in alignment with the character of God. Something in us believes we can get closer to God’s character simply by acting or thinking differently. Oddly enough this does not really reflect any Biblical theme or ideal. So, we think that if we get healthier physically, we are honoring the body that God gifted us with or even more theological, we perhaps are showing respect to the Holy Spirit that makes our body his home.
This is a pretty simplistic view, and I do believe that there are some of us who need these changes, but I am talking about something deeper. I am talking about justifying behaviors. If I do this, then this will be better. The Bible never claimed that if we worked out, we would be the best humans ever or that our lives would be trouble free. Rather Paul said that if we train by consistently living as Christ that we will finish the race (Heb. 12.1). Each of us run a different race in an attempt to finish.
Touching on the second idea, most of us lack a true understanding of who we are at the core. We tend to know what we love, what our passions are, but we do not always have a clear vision of who we are as individuals. Neither do we understand that role as it fits into that which God designed in us. Due to a lack in guiding help, the majority of us have never had the chance to take off all of our layers and wade through the deep recesses of our beings to find our soul. Our identities are wrapped up in who or what others have either taught us to be or want us to be.
Again, this is just scratching the surface of this idea. Having had the opportunity to explore my life’s journey from a reflection back to the day of my birth is probably one of the most incredible experiences I have ever been privy to take. When you walk this journey, with guidance, in a safe environment where you can discuss it and process through the difficult times, it takes on a whole other meaning than working through “stuff” with a counselor. Please, be clear that I am not in any way diminishing the work of a psychologist or licensed counselor (in fact, I happen to have a few great ones in the family). Instead, what I am talking about is soul work, not head or heart. At the core of our beings is how we process all of life. It’s like a data center in which all outside influences come in, we sort through discarding some, storing others, and finally we push out that which has no bearing on us as individuals.
The final thought revolves around happiness. In the world where I live, happiness has been revealed in recent years as an abstract goal that doesn’t really have any clear definition. With that it has also lost some merit in the focus of individuals. It has in a sense been identified as a phony. That said, we still lean into all that surrounds it. For example, we still think that joy and peace are in some way linked to this term, happiness. We have been told it so often by so many different sources that to think in any way counter to it seems unhealthy. Yet, happiness is a feeling it is not a lifestyle. Like frustration or inner warmth, it comes and goes.
In recent years, churches have begun to talk about peace as deeply rooted in our faith, only attainable through relationship with Christ. I would agree on that as a whole. I would disagree that it is easy to gain in our lives. It is when we understand how to weather the inconsistencies and constant beatings that we finally get a glimpse of peace.
These abstract ideas that are shoved down our throats on a regular basis serve not only as a false hope, but as one more knock on our egos. I teach biblical studies at a university. My first class is about Creation. One of the most important topics we discuss as a group is the logic and order that surrounds the formation of the inhabitants of the earth. I believe the same thing about how we gain inner peace. In fact, if you consider how you work towards physical health it has a natural order to it if it is done correctly. Inner peace is not found in a study. It is not found in a better prayer life. It is not done … you get the idea. Yet, pieces of it can be found in all of these things.
Ultimately, God leads us to this place through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, it is the work on our end that we do through honesty, confession, standing firm in faith, determination to live aligned with God, interpretation of Scripture, and prayer that lead us to healthy living. Even in these though there is a process. The way in which we work through these and adapt our lives to them determines the lasting outcome of them in us as individuals.
-blessings
Monica Swank 