10:10 Wellness

A More Excellent Way

One of my Saturday morning regulars recommended a book to me:  A More Excellent Way to Be In Health.  As you probably know, I'm a sucker for titles like that, and I had no qualms about dropping about $20 to get it.  We all have our weaknesses.

It's a very large/long book originally published in the early nineties and written by Henry Wright a lay person who has created a ministry and company to promote concepts of biblical health.  His primary assertion is that 80% of all disease has a spiritual root.  Because he uses so much scripture in his writing, I have to tell you that I was quickly infatuated with the material.  It provides an explanation, supported by lots of God's word, as to why so many suffer from sickness and disease.

A recent Google search brought me to a sobering review at Bible.org.  It's kinda long, and a great piece to read if you've read Wright's book, but it does not review it favorably.  The author of the article acknowledges connections between our spirits and our health, and he also acknowledges that Wright is sincere in his teaching; but he pretty much throws his teaching under the bus.  In a nutshell he points out that much of the scripture used is taken out of context to support a point Wright is trying to make.

There's much more to his critique than that, but I wanted to share one quote from the review that I loved:

"God promises us the abundant life. According to the health and wealth preachers, the abundant life is only being healthy and wealthy. That is an earthly (unbiblical) perspective. The biblical perspective is that the abundant life is being able to have joy in the midst of trials – whether sickness, poverty, prison, or whatever. The abundant life is not found in circumstances. It is found in relationship with Christ, the Lord of and over our circumstances."

I think I'll keep searching for a more excellent way.

 

 

 

God Wants You Well (Conclusion)

So we live in a fallen world, and people get sick.  But God wants us well.  There's a disconnect there.  Maybe we could say there's a battle.  Of course I want to be on God's team, but sometimes I can't help looking at the scoreboard and seeing that we're losing.

Here's where faith comes into play.  Faith is that mysterious component that separates believers from tire kickers.  It's the thing I struggle with most with my non-believing friends.  It's something I want so much for them but will never be able to offer; because faith doesn't come from me.  Faith comes from surrender.  It means I will believe and trust in something even if I can't see it with my eyes.

When we flip a light switch we demonstrate faith.  I don't really have a clue how electricity works, how it's delivered to my home, or how it illuminates the light bulb that enables me to see my keyboard right now.  But I know it works.  Any believer would describe their faith in the same way.

So when I look at the world's scoreboard, the one that's telling us that half of you reading this will get sick with cancer in your lifetime, it doesn't matter.  The game is already over.  God wins.  Of course you and I have to keep playing - meaning there's still time on the clock.  But I know through faith that we've already won.  It is finished.  Isn't that how Jesus put it just before he died on the cross?

Since there's still time on our clocks, and because there's still a lot of sick people, I'm gonna keeping fighting - fighting for life.  Abundant life at that!

Are you in?

God Wants You Well (part 6)

Andew Wommack, author of God Wants You Well, put it this way:  "The Lord used healing like a bell to get people's attention and to prove that he did have power on earth to forgive sins".  He used the paralyzed man on the mat to illustrate.

The story begins with a display of faith.  Jesus had come to a town, another one of those where the people flocked to see this celebrated preacher man.  He was preaching in a home that was so full of seekers that people were crowded around the doors and windows hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus. 

God Wants You Well (part 2)

Great news.  God hasn't struck me down for admitting that I'm less than sure about TV evangelical healings.  So I can expand on what I learned from God Wants You Well.  As I said I was expecting a book on Biblical habits that will make us healthy - not eating bottom feeders type material.  It had none of that.

Let me preface this discussion with an admission that I'm still very green in Bible study.  I like to believe and try to have a child-like faith - which can in some ways be naive.  Perhaps later I'll unpack that.  I don't plan to provide a book review here - I just want to share how this book changed my belief about healing - divine healing in this case.

God Wants You Well (part 1)

One of my favorite shopping destinations is Amazon (as in .com).  Never a fan of browsing a mall (I am a man, aren't I), I've found the Amazon site to be incredibly useful - for buying books that is.  Some reading purists would probably scoff at this shopping habit as opposed to a traditional book store or library experience.  My take is that in a matter of moments, I can find not only the book I'm looking for, but also, a number of related books that are also of interest.  And that's how I found the book God Wants You Well.

As a hobby, I like to explore and study health.  Some of my book recommendations reveal that.  As a Christian, I like to explore and study my faith.  To a lesser degree than the health topic, I also have some suggested reading on faith - but those books have a health hook in them.  I suppose I need to include other suggestions in the context of improving our spiritual health.  For now I'll leave that up to the God experts - I'm just a guy who loves Jesus and who loves to work out all the time.

The Metabolic Typing Diet

In my recent post A Year Later, I shared some of the new habits I've adopted since I got sick.  The most vague, but clearly the most useful, was my adoption of The Metabolic Typing Diet (MTD).  This is an approach to abundant health that relies solely on the manipulation of the macronutrients in our diet (protein, fat, and carbs).  An important clarification here, is the diet assumes we're not eating crap - and don't make me define crap here - you know what I mean.