Here’s yet another post with insight and thoughts captured from my reading of Health Care You Can Live With by Dr. Scott Morris, founder of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tennessee.
Excerpts From Chapters 9, 10 and 11
Wellness has to do with whether the person can see God’s presence in a way that draws the person forward into the glory of the kingdom of God. …. Wellness is what happens when you drink of the well.
The biblical concept of shalom is a powerful argument that God cares about the well-being of people. This word appears in the Old Testament more than 250 times and overwhelmingly points to well-being that comes from God in the widest sense of the word. Shalom describes not only a spiritual connection to God, but a life connection – bodily health, contentedness and social relationships.
I am convinced that true health always occurs through a community experience. When people live out their faith together, the health of everyone who shares the experience is enhanced.
Like the woman who suffered for 12 years (Mark 5), perhaps you are ready to reach out for a new level of well-being in your life, a well-being that springs out of being connected to God.
If God wants wholeness for us as whole beings, what gets in the way of experiencing it? What can I do to remove the obstacles in my own experience? What can we do to close the gap?
Change starts with individuals, not with legislation. Change in your health care starts with you.
Whole-life wellness rapidly climbs the chart when people contribute to a community and expand their own social network. In our wellness facility, people come together and encourage one another in exercise, nutrition, support groups and prayer.
Prevention matters. Most of prevention has to do with choices that individuals can make for themselves, but people are more likely to make choices with the help of other people.
A culture of dignity, community, giving and prevention could revolutionize health care. Those things do not happen by government action. They result from individual choice. Health care change starts with me. It starts with you.
Our lives are healthy when we are linked to a source of meaning – God – and when we experience relationships that sustain us, nurture us and point us to God over and over again.
The culture is full of messages that run counter to a true understanding of wellness. Choosing to take your health care into your own hands begins with understanding you are created for a relationship with God. If this is your starting point for wellness in your own life, you’ll begin to distinguish the messages in the culture that work against wellness even though buzz words try to convince you they are good for your health.
My Comments
A key point that Morris brings out in these chapters is that the individual is primarily responsible for his/her own health care. Our wellness is largely determined by the sum of our choices over time. This includes our choice of whether or not to include a relationship with God as part of our overall wellness. Remember, you were created by God. And he created you and me to be in relationship with him. Because that is the case, if we choose to not be in relationship with him, right off the bat, our overall wellness – or wholeness- is at a disadvantage.
Another key point he makes is that the messages we receive from the media, by and large, are not goof for our wellness. These messages — and their promises —- are generally over-exaggerated. And, they almost always exclude God, your creator.
To me, leaving God – and his principles found in the Bible – out of the equation is the biggest reason why so many wellness-related initiatives fail. How can they succeed when God’s principles for living are not included?
Personal Health Care – Helpful Resources
Article – His Instruction Manual … Our Guidebook for Healthy Living
Article – It’s About The Relationship
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