As followers of Jesus Christ, we are taught to steward our finances well. At our last church, we even took a finance class (based on Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University - highly recommend!). However, I’ve rarely seen or heard much about stewarding our health choices well. I have found myself having conflicting thoughts when a group of believers gather to eat and pray over their meal asking the Lord to allow the food to nourish their bodies when... the food on the table was a bunch of junk food. Have you ever done that? I know I have. And don’t get me wrong, I know God is all powerful and can make anything nourish our bodies, but at the same time we have free will. As I continue down the road on my personal health journey, I have found myself asking 'why do we as Christians do this?' and I can only think of three reasons why: 1. People may be uneducated or confused on what is healthy and what is not, 2. People are not being intentional with their health choices, or 3. Food is a stronghold in their life that they have yet to surrender.
If you have found yourself doing this and can relate to number 1, I hope this blog will help educate and clear up any nutrition myths - there will be a lot more to come about this in future posts. If you relate to number 2, I hope this blog will inspire you to be more intentional. And if you find yourself relating to number 3, I pray you can leave the strongholds surrounding food and/or other health choices at the foot of the cross as you go on your health journey. I will probably have a blog post about that point in particular at some point! For the purpose of this blog post though - I am going to talk about number two - intentionality with health!
So, when creating a financial budget, Dave Ramsey suggests to first list out your income and then list out your expenses. When writing out expenses, covering your four walls should be priority which include - food, utilities, shelter, and transportation. These are the four areas that are absolutely essential to your livelihood. Then, you list your other expenses such as debt, insurance, childcare, etc. and then list the nonessential expenses like entertainment and fun money. Basically, you have a designated spot where every dollar goes. When you subtract your expenses from your income, it should equal zero, meaning every dollar was put somewhere intentionally! If you don’t know where your money is going, you can easily waste money and end up in debt.
I believe health stewardship is very similar to financial stewardship when you really think about it. Just like money is provided only by the Lord, so are our bodies and we have a responsibility to take care of them to the best of our ability. Our income is time - each day we wake up is an opportunity to steward well the body that God gave you and every little choice you make through out the day is how you spend your 'money'. The four walls of health would be: Nutrition, Exercise, Mental/Emotional, and Sleep/Recovery. These four areas are essential to keeping our bodies thriving. When we don't steward well our health choices and we are unintentional with them, we can easily end up with health problems like chronic diseases, obesity, low energy, and the list goes on - just like how we can end up in debt or bankruptcy with money.
I did not put "Spiritual Health" as one of the four walls because that is the absolute foundation from which the budget flows. Health stewardship as a follower of Christ should be something that is done as a response to what happened on the cross - an act of worship.
Tips on how to be intentional in each of the four walls of health are coming... stay tuned!
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