Monday, September 13, 2010

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?  You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.  So you must honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20


"You do not belong to yourself."  Just thinking of all of the titles we carry can be dizzying.  Mom, sister, daughter, friend, writer, teacher, mentor, student, cook, organizer, homemaker, gardener, neighbor, helper, aunt, niece, wife, counselor, planner, director, and the list goes on.


In order to be the best at the roles we are called to be, we need to keep God's temple in good condition.  Take time to read for edification and for relaxation.  Spend time alone reading the Bible and praying, spend time with others reading the Bible and praying.  


The mind is sharper when the physical body is in good condition.  Make the time to run, lift weights, do some old fashioned calisthenics.  Jumping Jacks and Jills, sit-ups, pushups, hula-hooping and jumping rope.  Make the time.  Do it alone, with your family or with a friend.  Just make the time and do it.  Doing it perfectly is not necessary, but doing it is.


Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.  Hebrews 12:12-13


"Make straight paths for your feet" reminds me, personally, that I need keep my workout area clear so I can workout any time of the day.  Doing what I can to clear my calendar, keep up with laundry, keep my gear in an orderly way so I will not trip over anything to injure myself or come up with excuses not to workout, which comes quite easily for me.


Temple conditioning honors God and benefits others in my life and even myself.  


Happy conditioning!



Monday, August 16, 2010

Who's Temple?

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?  You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.  So you must honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20

There is a term I recently heard.  Deconditioning.  When we work on something, either to maintain or improve, we are conditioning it.

Physical deconditioning is:  Cause to lose fitness or muscle tone, especially through lack of exercise.

In psychiatry, the term is:  Re-form or reverse previously conditioned behavior, especially in the treatment of phobia and other anxiety disorders in which the fear response to certain stimuli brought under control.

There was a time when I read these verses and just read them as don't commit a sin against your body, God's temple.  "Committing" sounds like an "action verb," taking steps toward sin.  But I've come around to the belief that doing nothing is also an active sin against His temple.

There are so many ways we decondition the body.  Inactivity, is obvious.  Overeating, another obvious choice.  But our minds--this is where so much of the deconditioning takes place.  We don't just find ourselves on the couch, no we had to consciously think about how to get there and where to plop down. We don't just find ourselves with aching joints that carry too much weight, we made conscious decisions to get us to that point.  We don't just find ourselves with aching joints, underweight, by accident.  We have made conscious decisions to not eat and to not train our bodies to get up and move.

One moment for me, when this started clicking in my mind was reading about Phillip running along side the chariot.  At the time I read that, I realized I couldn't even run to the mailbox!  So, at that time, my goal was to train myself to run to the mailbox.  I didn't set my goals any higher than that.  I met the goal and that was it for a few years.  Yes, years.

That's my first post.  I have lots of snippets in my brain for future posts and it is difficult to not put them in this post, but I'm trying to train myself to not let my randomness run rampant on this blog.  Thanks for your patience.

Cindy Q