Made For This

Have you ever considered what God, the Creator of all, thinks about your health? He cares completely for you. He is not the shame-giver, in fact He takes our shame and replaces it with honor. He cares so much about your health that He included counsel and instruction for it in the bible. He is the genius inventor of whole health. God’s order is for our spirit to rule our entire being, and for our soul to be the merging place between our spirit and body. We must focus on our health in this order: spirit, soul, body. Our soul and body are healthiest when governed by our spirit. When we understand that inspiration from God in our spirit is the most strengthening force available, we’ll stop seeking counterfeits to fuel our health transformation process.

Years ago, I was a college athlete with a hurting soul, and body. Pain in my soul was causing pain in my body. At the time I didn’t understand that connection existed. Without the foundation of a relationship with God, my will, a part of my soul (mind, will, emotions) became subdued from the persistent pain. I was no longer able to compete at the level necessary to excel. I knew this before my coaches did, but I kept pushing myself. What came next was shocking. I experienced a severe knee injury during one of our games. Multiple surgeries followed and failed to recover my body to play again at the collegiate level. My worth to my coaches had diminished, but truly none of my worth was lost. Unknowingly, it would take me years to recover from their choices and understand my worth. This immense trial would only support the blessed change in trajectory my life was beginning to take.

If I hadn’t experienced the knee injury I may have continued to avoid the signs and promptings that I was unwell; numb to considering God’s will could offer me a better life. For 15 years prior to the injury the driving force of my existence was the next sports commitment and its requirements. It was what I knew, and the product of my involvement became the substance of my vision. Suddenly that driving force, ceased as I was declared “unable”. Now, it was urgent for me to visit my foundation. I couldn’t avoid it any longer, my soul was dying. I was utterly overwhelmed at the glaring needs and scared of the future considering my inability to handle the lack I suspected. I didn’t have the tools within me to be healthy and the coping and avoidance strategies had expired.

“In the years that proceeded this trial, I received what I desperately needed: a relationship with my Creator, and God-inspired vision for my life and health.”

In the years that proceeded this trial, I received what I desperately needed: a relationship with my Creator, and God-inspired vision for my life and health.“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18 KJV). I believe God giving vision to an individual is one of the kindest things He does for us in the earth. God-inspired vision saved my life, because it rescued my hope. He valued my health more than any other and I was made for the vision He had for my life.

“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future” (Proverbs 31:25 NLT). When I first read this, it echoed back to my heart. This was the woman I wanted to become, genuinely. I wanted integrity to link who I was within and who I presented. My self-perception was vastly different than this woman. I felt dirty, weak, entangled with fear and anxiety, and unknown because of lacking integrity. I had spent my entire life practicing how to look strong and present myself in a dignified manner. I laughed to disconnect with the gnawing pain inside, causing more conflict. But God was making all my past, somehow okay in His love and grace. He was inviting me into a life of truth, enveloped by love. He was reviving my hope. This hope would soon give permission to faith. I started to respect the idea that if I became the description of this scripture on the inside, then my external life and dealings could actually reflect this. And that would mean I wouldn’t have to keep exerting the energy I had to create external matters to fulfill the life I longed for while walling my broken insides away. Instead, I could focus on becoming this vision within and let the fruit of that substance impact everything around me.

If we don’t get God-inspired vision for our lives, we will live below what we were made for. God knows all things, we don’t. From my background of competitive athletics and involvement in a community searching for whatever would motivate them enough to perform at their highest capability, I am now convinced God is the greatest source of inspiration. In fact, I believe He designed it this way. That deep within us we would long to grow and change and be drawn to Him in our searching and failing, to astonishingly encounter the source that inspires us. Many people choose to believe that the answer for transformation is to find enough inspiration to change, within one’s soul. What is overlooked is the polarization this idea causes. The idea says that people’s potential is dictated and limited by their own will-power, which supports that the only people who have potential to be transformed are those with strong will-power. But God doesn’t reward based on will-power, He is much more inclusive. He inspires with His love and celebrates the surrendered will. His power in our lives is not based on performance or ability but operable through our faith. He makes transformation available to anyone who receives His inspiration, rather than reserving it for the strong-willed.

“God makes transformation available to anyone who receives His inspiration, rather than reserving it for the strong-willed.”

Transformation occurs when the mind is renewed. If the soul is not inspired by God through the spirit, transformation is impossible. The mind is not renewed by information, but by revelation that comes only from the Spirit and Word of God. In this order our lives become transformed by the government of our ever-renewing soul. [The disciplines we practice are not actually what transform us.] We are transformed as we think differently. Wholly Healthy’s whole health statement recognizes that the inspiration required to transform our health is anchored in God-inspired vision. The boundaries, and disciplines we set are secondary and must all be established to support the vision.

WH WHOLE HEALTH STATEMENT:
When I live inspired by God
I see life-filled vision for my health.
I establish boundaries to help me practice daily disciplines
that will transform my soul and body into my spirit- inspired vision.

In the book of Habakkuk, there is record of God instructing the prophet Habakkuk about vision. We will put it in our tool belt. “I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected. Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:1-3 KJV). In these verses key instructions for God-inspired vision are:
1.    Position myself to see God
2.    Posture myself to hear God
3.    Write the vision, make it plain
4.    Read it
5.    Run with inspiration
6.    Trust
7.    Wait
8.    Believe

In the book of Esther in the bible, we learn of Esther, a Jewish woman who is given an opportunity to be powerful and fulfill purpose on her life. She was chosen by the Persian King to be his wife, though he didn’t know she was a Jew. Once married, a law was passed to kill Jews because they held their own laws and customs, and this threatened the King’s rule. Mordecai, Esther’s older cousin (her adopted guardian) suggested that God allowed Esther to become the queen to help protect her people. “And who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this and for this very occasion” (Esther 4:14 AMPC)? Esther chooses to follow God, walk in boldness, and see God’s favor for her accomplish what only it can. Like Esther, there is a combination of attributes, timing, and purpose that only you, in all of history, were destined to fulfill. Encouragement goes quiet, friends fail, our disciplines falter, our motives twist, but God’s plan and inspired vision for each of us remains. There is a completely customized, God-inspired vision for you that is set apart, preserved, and waiting. Now is the time to live your purpose and practice the health that’ll enable its fulfillment. You were made for this.