It is time to start taking responsibility for our physical and spiritual health. It is not OK to just show up to church a blank slate every Sunday and expect the pastor to tell you what you need to know about God. It is not OK to show up to your doctor and expect them to tell you everything you need to know about being healthy. Sure, these people are educated and trained but does that make them perfect? No. Does that mean what they tell you is it? Everything? Absolutely not. For one, they have spent years and often a lifetime learning and cannot possibly relay everything to you. If you do not have the right questions or have all the time in the world, you cannot obtain all information from these people. Second, they are humans trained by other humans. Right there leaves a huge margin of error in their understanding. Both spiritual and physical health is a lifelong journey for all of us. No one has arrived. There is no amount of knowledge that can be attained that allows us to kick up our feet and say "there, I passed the test. I know everything. School is over." I am sick to death of hearing people say things like "I eat burgers, fries, and junk every day but my doctor says I am healthy." You are fooling yourself if you think that is true. Sure, your blood pressure may be OK for now. The scale may even be OK for now. But if you are not giving your body what it needs to function properly, you are a slippery slope to disease. Maybe not today, but one day it WILL catch up and will it really make you feel any better to play the victim and claim your doctor never told you?
This is really me thinking "out loud" so to speak because I get frustrated with myself in these areas too. I love to listen to bible studies and read books, but I often get frustrated with myself for my lack of understanding on my own. Guidance is good but not in the place of personal spiritual growth which comes from my relationship with the Lord--not from the mouth of man. And physical health, ugh, another overwhelming subject that leaves many throwing their hands up saying "yeah, well EVERYTHING causes cancer so whatever!" This is not OK. It is not OK to keep poisoning ourselves because there is controversy surrounding what is poison. Just like it is not OK to throw in the towel on God because there is controversy surrounding what beliefs are true. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves and make decisions/learn faith and come to our conclusions on what is truth. What is right for us. What consequences can we live with? This may look different for you than it does for me and that is OK! We are all different. We are all allowed to be wrong. But to be ignorant to all of it, to not come to any conclusions for lack of effort, to float through life as if there are no consequences to our choices (or lack thereof) is not only ludicrous but dangerous.
Let us not be satisfied when we feel sick and tired and our doctor tells us we are fine. Let us not be satisfied when the medical community says things are safe that go against nature and our moral fiber. Remember all the things we used to accept as safe that are now deemed deadly? I find it hard to believe that as people grabbed cigarettes back in the day and hacked and coughed as they smoked them that there was no part of them that thought "this may be not good for my health". Just because something wont kill you today doesn't mean it isn't killing you. God may not appear in your bedroom at night in a fiery cloud telling you to change your ways, but that does not mean the way you live your life is not killing you. Life does not have to be endured. It does not have to be riddled with pain, pointlessness, or emptiness. I am not promising anyone that there is a formula that will make you feel like rainbows and sunshine everyday in either of these aspects of life, but it is our responsibility to ourselves, our children, God, to dig! Dig for information, learn about your body, soul, and spirit. Get tuned in to the point you can listen to your instincts and trust them. Is what my pastor said really in line with what I believe? Does it "sit right" with me? Is the pharmaceutical propaganda really the way it is? Does it make sense according to my understanding? Are these side effects "perfectly normal" and "just fine" with me? Am I simply not sure? Let me not rest until I am sure, not because I have given up.
Its not easy to go against the grain. And I am not saying it is always necessary to do so. I am just saying, be educated. Be responsible for you. Know WHY. If you don't know why, ask why--ask why not. Because at the end of the day I can only live with the consequences I consciously chose, for a reason. Not the one I blindly followed because so many others did too. I will not find comfort in being a victim because I chose not to research. We are all smart and capable. I will not let a pastor or doctor make me feel as though I am not. I will seek guidance and counsel but will not allow anyone to take away my self efficacy.
