Because for me, God, and better yet Christ, are at the center of life. I may have offended people at times when I have said I don’t try to put God first, but rather I put my health first. It sounds like I might be using my health pursuit as an idol over God. And he is a jealous God.
However, my pursuit is not to put God first, but to put him in the middle, so that if I were to put anything first, it would be how I spend my time on life. My health, my wife, my kids, my extended family, my friends, my patients, etc. But instead of saying, “God is first”, I say “God is alongside of it all”. My point, or my attempt here, is to utilize the lens that I think God is looking through, with respect to all of my decisions. Especially health. Let me give a quick example.
We started a group among the patients a few years ago, called “Open Box Health”. It started, got warm, then fizzled. What was the point of it? To let God outside of the box when it comes to your health. So, this is really a focus on this thing that we do, where we engage God, or Biblical principles, only when it is convenient to us. So if you find yourself in the hospital, in a near death experience, do you pray? Do you pray more than you have ever prayed? Probably. But did you pray for guidance and wisdom, and did you search for t
hat wisdom, and then follow it once you found Biblical wisdom BEFORE your health was a disaster? Probably not.
Let Him out of the box, give Him the reins.
Why would I put health first on the list then? Shouldn’t my family be before me? Well, of course when it comes to a commitment of time and money, family is first. But I will never let that cost me my health pursuit. Let me explain. If I have a day completely filled with family commitments, so there is no time for anything else. Yet I believe that exercise is a necessary part of health, then I will find the time. Even if it is at 11pm at night, I will work out. Or if my schedule is so crazy with them, because we are running all around Mickey’s kingdom. And food is poor, yet only poor food is readily available. I still eat healthy. The backpack on my back is loaded with nuts, and with healthy snacks, and we eat a salad first, and are cautious about our choices. We do eat 80/20 (you should have read this before), 20% off the perfect list… so we can do that, but if I eat all Disney food for one day, then I need to eat perfect for at least 5 days out of 7. So 80/20 per day is a lot easier to maintain. You know, something else that is hard to accomplish out in the world, is to get adjusted. But I do it whenever I can. Time out, and run off to a chiropractor to get the power turned on!
I know that to some, it might still look like health pursuit is my idol. But it isn’t, really. I enjoy it, but it is a means to an end. I want to be able to serve my God, and Christ til the day I die. I believe that is what we have all been called to do. I can say without question, there is nobody else on the planet that I would choose to emulate more than Christ. In order to do that, without anything getting in my way, I need to be healthy. I need to have energy, and I need to have passion. I want nothing to strip those things from me. I want my children to always see my attitude as one who LOVES life.
Lets circle back; with health FIRST on my list, it allows me the opportunity to enjoy life, enjoy my family, to serve others and yet to be confident that I am preserving the best chance to do that for years. It drives home a commitment for my kids to follow, one that we know is going to drive them to make wise choices as well.
I think we have wrapped up the health thing… now did we ever really get to the God thing? Not so much, but we are well set up to hit it. There is the obvious, “I believe He is the creator of all, so I put Him in my health life, just like everything else”. But that is not what I am talking about. Consider this… every day, people make decisions for their health life, because they have reached a place of weakness. A place of concern, that is so great, they have no option for hope or health. Ask most of these people about their faith, and it is inconsequential. What I mean is, it doesn’t matter if they are atheist, or Christian, or Hindu. They all look away from their philosophical belief, and simply begin trusting whatever is being told to them by the doc.
Contrary to this concept, is the concept that their is a God, who created this body, with everything that it needs. And even in a period of crises, the body has more potential than the doc can add. The body has more hope than anything else that could influence it. Ultimately, the trust is in God and in the body. Just dial it up, and fight for healing. This is using God as the cornerstone. When I make a decision for health, I don’t make it lightly, I make it with the belief that I can prevent cancer, and by truly believing that, It makes every decision more important.
Hey, now that I have made my point, and I have your attention. Just a quick aside. Why do I prefer to honor Christ over God? Because God can me many things, but Christ only means one thing. I go with Him, and thus His Father, because He is the only person to have ever risen from the dead. Too many witnesses with nothing to gain for me to believe otherwise, and so then, I choose to WANT to emulate that guy. I am not so good at it, but I try. Thanks for reading… be well and be blessed! – Dr. E