Many of you have an interest in public and community health so I wanted to pass this along to you.
How healthy is your county? A new set of reports that were released today rank the overall health of nearly every county in the nation, confirming for the second year the critical role that factors such as education, jobs, income, environment and access to health care play in how healthy people are and how long they live.
Published online at www.countyhealthrankings.org by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the County Health Rankings look at a variety of measures that affect health, such as high school graduation rates, access to healthier foods, air pollution levels, income, and rates of smoking, obesity and teen births. This is the only tool of its kind that allows people to see how their county compares with others in their state and against national benchmarks in areas like diabetes screening rates or number of uninsured adults, and makes it possible for leaders in all sectors to identify gaps and work together to develop solutions.
Excerpts From Chapter 2 – “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”:
“The Bible is clear: God’s people should care for the poor, the sick, and widows and orphans.”
“When they (Protestants) broke away from the established church for theological reasons, however, they also cut themselves loose from the system that cared for the sick.”
“People no longer saw the church as the place to go for care and healing when they were sick. Instead, doctors cared for the body, and it was the church’s job to look after the spirit.”
“Now, more and more, medicine was on one path and religious faith was on another. While scientists and theologians duked it out intellectually, ordinary people felt less and less conflict in simply accepting both paths as separate but true. The union of body and spirit cracked. The fissure split open a gorge and theologians and scientists could hardly see each other across the expanse. You probably recognize this division because it still rears its head when you get sick.”
“The dominant approach to health care in the United States concerns broken bodies more than broken lives.”
“Health care is a mess.”
“”Jesus said, “The poor will always be with you.” So far, he has been right. If he ever asks me, “Where were you when I was poor and sick?” I want to be able to answer, “I cared for you as best I could.”"
” Doctors learn to ‘keep out.’ Doctors learn to practice medicine by taking a medical history and asking questions around the symptoms the patient describes. ….. This process also says, ‘Keep out.’ Keep out of my heart. Keep out of my sorrow, my stress, my fatigue, my relationships. Keep out of my private space. Just fix what hurts.”
“Every day, every single day, doctors tell patients there’s nothing wrong because they find no physical root for patient complaints….. Whatever is amiss is not a matter for the health care system.”
“Plenty is wrong. Spiritual and emotional issues manifest in physical ways.(my emphasis) But, our health care system draws a line and says, ‘Keep Out.’”
“Health care is a mess. People want change. But to what?”
“Efforts at health care reform fail because they avoid the essential questions of wellness. The starting point is off kilter. Our health care system is built on the premise of waiting for people to break in some way and then come through the doors, where we will use our technological wizardry to fix them…. That’s not health care.”
“Caring for health means attending to the things that keep you well long before you break and need the door to technology.”
“In the next couple of chapters, …. we’ll delve into what you can do to bring change to your [personal] health care.”
My Thoughts
Morris is right, so very often it’s deeper spiritual and emotional issues that are at the root of the physical ailments we have. Most medical professionals will agree that the greatest majority (80-90%) of visits to physician offices are because of stress-related issues.
Our greatest hope in changing our personal health status is in loving our creator, God, and in living according to the many principles found in his guidebook for living, the Bible.
God is love. 1 John 4:8
His greatest command to us is to love him. Mark 12:29
He tells us that to love him means to obey his commands or principles. John 14:15
God has given us his principles because he knows that the greatest chance we have for health and wholeness comes when we follow them.
Questions to Reflect On:
Are you addressing spiritual and emotional issues that may possibly be at the root of your sickness or disease?
Do you encourage your physician to help you look ‘inside’ at your heart issues in addition to the ‘outside’ physical symptoms?
Written by Dr. G. Scott Morris, founder of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Health Care You Can Live Withputs a human face on the hot topic of health care. Making the argument that healing—both physical and spiritual—is a key aspect of the Christian faith, Dr. Morris provides a biblical framework for wellness and encourages us through real-life stories of those who found a better life within the overarching love of God.
It’s an excellent read! I began reading the book last night and almost completed it in one sitting. I now plan to read it over a second time. I will share in brief, individual posts the things that ‘jump out at me’ and reinforce what I believe and have come to understand over the years about the connection between health and the Christian faith. Typically, I’ll include short excerpts from the book and occasionally add my own comments. Below is my first excerpt.
“Jesus’ life was about healing the whole person. – the body and spirit – and the church is Jesus in the world. Jesus’ message is our message. Jesus’ ministry is our ministry.”
“The church can choose to get involved by reclaiming the biblical mandate to bring healing. Individual congregations can choose to get involved by envisioning their role in the health of members and the community around them. Individual Christians can choose to get involved in changing health care by taking charge of their own health care. And it has nothing to do with what happens in Washington or who is President.”
Questions to Reflect On:
Is your church choosing to get involved in the health of your members and your community?
To what extent have you chosen to be involved in your personal health care?
Health and well-being. What’s the purpose of having it? Why should we desire to be healthy?
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denomination, would have said that the purpose of good health is to enable us to do the things that God has planned for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) According to Wesley, our goal should not be to have good health for its own sake but to have health so our bodies can be “fit instruments” so that we can be our best as we live in community and service with others and in communion with God.
“The Christian life of grace and confidence looks to the well-being of the whole [person]. It sets a high value upon health — of body, mind and spirit. But health is not a terminal value in and of itself. A
human life is more than a biological episode. The value of health is to supply an efficient agency for the projects of the total self, to provide a fit instrument for the growth and maturation of men and women in community with others and communion with God.” *
Wesley recognized that the inner aspects of a person – his soul and emotions or ‘passions’ – greatly affected one’s physical health. He regarded the body as system, working together in all it’s parts or aspects. This stresses the importance of attending to our inner selves and certainly issues of the heart. Scripture reminds us of the significance of caring for our hearts.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23
“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30
Another key motivation for believers to care for their health is that the Holy Spirit lives in us.
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
If our motivation for attending to our health is pure before God, it will be pleasing to him. Then, as we call to him to help us with aspects of caring for our bodies, he will hear our cries and attend to them. Psalm 34:15
Questions to Reflect On:
What’s your motivation for having good health and well-being? Do you think that God is pleased with these motivations?
Knowing God and experiencing his deep love in our hearts, not just having knowledge about him and his love in our minds, is one important way in which we grow in our relationship with him and how we receive healing.
Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus to have this deep knowledge and experience.
“[For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him.” Ephesians 1:17 – The Amplified Bible
God wants you to have a deep spiritual awareness of his love and to experience his love in your heart. The source of this knowledge is God and the Holy Spirit is the channel through whom God reveals this to you deep in your mind and in your heart.
A secret to living – to experiencing – a full life on this side of heaven is to know God deeply and to experience God’s love. Spending regular quiet time with him is essential to growing in relationship with him. And, the quality of the time we spend with him is key as well. God invites us to quiet our mind and earnestly seek him and his presence. The posture of our heart during quiet time is also important. Being humble, contrite, meek, surrendered, dependent and expectant sets an atmosphere for us to sense his presence and experience him. Then, when we are like this, it’s more likely that we’ll have an encounter with the Holy Spirit and that God’s love is more likely to be felt in our hearts.
Are you yearning for a special touch from God? Do you need to experience the deep love he has for you in a personal way? I pray, as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that you’ll set aside some time to be quiet with him. Be intentional with the inner posture of your heart as I described above. Earnestly invite God to reveal himself to you by the Holy Spirit. And then, just be with him.
As I was writing the last part of this post, this song below began to play. You may consider listening to it play softly as you sit quietly with God and experience his presence.
One of Jesus’ last prayers was that all future believers would know him and his Father and have eternal life.
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3
The Greek word for know is ginosko, meaning to know, to understand, to perceive. Here, Jesus was not just meaning that we are to gain head knowledge about himself and the Father, but to get to know them intimately…. to really know them. Yes, it’s important to read the Bible to gain knowledge about God’s principles and to learn about him and his Son, Jesus, but Jesus wants us to really know him and his Father at a deeper level. This is something we can not do just in our minds, our brains. We must get to know them in our hearts.
We get to know Jesus and God the Father in an intimate way through the Holy Spirit.
Three chapters earlier in the book of John, Jesus told his disciples that his Father would send the Holy Spirit to them after he departs to be with his Father in heaven.
“But the Holy Spirit will come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place. The Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you.” John 14:26
One role of the Holy Spirit, as Helper, is to guide us into truth. Another role is to help us experience God in a personal way. True life transformation occurs when we experience and embrace God’s love in our hearts. As you read scripture or are exposed to the truth of scripture through teaching or preaching, ask God to make it real to you. Ask God to reveal himself to you in your heart, not just in your mind.
Here’s an example. You read in scripture that you are a child of God because you have accepted Jesus. Galatians 3:26 You believe that people who accept Jesus in their hearts become a child of God, but you have been unable to embrace the idea that God really accepts you and that you, indeed, are a child of God. Prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you in your heart that this is so. Ask him to to touch you heart in a way that this truth is personally known to you.
A deep need we all have is to feel accepted. When we truly feel accepted by God deep in our hearts, we’re less likely to turn to unhealthy habits to try to fill this void that only God can fill. God wants each of his children to experience his love and acceptance and to experience the eternal life in an abundant way while we are living on this earth. The Holy Spirit was sent by God to believers in Christ to reveal himself to us in a personal way and this enables us to feel accepted by God and to live this full life now.
A Question to Reflect On:
Are you experiencing God’s love in a meaningful way? If not, consider asking the Holy Spirit to help you receive God’s truths in your heart.
Many of you have an interest in public and community health so I wanted to pass this along to you.
Health and well-being. What’s the purpose of having it? Why should we desire to be healthy?
Knowing God and experiencing his deep love in our hearts, not just having knowledge about him and his love in our minds, is one important way in which we grow in our relationship with him and how we receive healing.
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