I am always in awe of how God made our whole bodies. All the little parts that work together for the good of the whole body. Science still has not discovered all of the loving intricacies that God created. What we are discovering through science is that ALL the parts are needed for a well-functioning body. In part, as our individual bodies are healthier, we function better as a part of the body of Christ.
God gave us a lot of working parts that make up our human bodies. All those itty bitty pieces like veins and ligaments, hair and nails. The interstitial spaces. Right along with the big stuff like skin and organs. And He intricately wove them together with love and intelligent precision to work TOGETHER.
Interstitial spaces are fun to know about… The interstitial compartment (also called “tissue space”) surrounds tissue cells. It is filled with interstitial fluid. Interstitial fluid provides the immediate microenvironment that allows for movement of ions, proteins
My brain cannot wrap around all of the intricacies that it took to make the human body so durable and adaptable and yet so fragile at the same time. Science also has not discovered all of the details. What the latest science is finding is that it all works together.
So what do we know? We know what God says about our bodies.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, we are told about the Holy Spirit and how the human body is a good representation of how we could view the parts, the people as a group. We are diverse and we require unity.
It is in God’s description of the human body that expresses the importance of viewing our bodies as a whole unit (AND, at the same time, as one part of the body of Christ).
It is this description that reminds me that we have the choice to believe God or not. We can listen to the mainstream medical system that we are parts or we can listen to God that we are a whole body with parts working together for the greater good of the whole body.
By using our minds, that God gave us, we can find truth in how we can return to health. Viewing our bodies as a whole is only one part of the truth but it sure can help us move toward healing from chronic illness.
For me, it would be like saying that we could take faith out of the picture and still get back to a healthy body. Nothing about that is accurate, according to God. We are many parts, complex and intricately woven, that all work together. Wether that
If God says our body parts are meant to work together, then why would we not treat our body as such? For example; Why would a cardiologist have all the answers to our chronic illness when the heart is attached to vascular, oral and gut health????
I use that as a perfect example because of my own decades of heart issues. At 10 years of age, 21 years of age, and again three more times, cardiologists declared a heart condition but not one clue why or how to fix it. Then with 100% heart blockage and a near-death experience, I had to accept that even after all the numerous cardiologists, I had to look at this differently. They all admitted they did not have one answer. I had to look at my whole body to figure out how to live through 100% blockage.
Obviously, this is a medical impossibility and God is the one who kept me alive. The experience and the lessons from it have been invaluable. Doctors are not gods. Our bodies have the innate self-healing process built in by God that no doctor can medically explain.
Shoot, I don’t know how to explain my thought process. NO, I am not saying all doctors are worthless. NO, I am not saying ignore health issues and they will go away. Instead, I am saying I personally have been forced into looking farther than our current medical system, much further.
And it is further than the church’s teaching of faith alone will heal. Yes, faith alone CAN heal, obviously, God tells us so, black-and-white. But God never promises to heal ALL physical issues by faith alone. God’s will for our individual lives to glorify Him is more complex than that alone.
Beyond that is viewing our bodies as temples for the Holy Spirit and taking responsibility for our own bodies, our lifestyles, our choices that actually create some of the chaos in our bodies that get us into a state of chronic illness.
Our bodies are clearly intended to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The roof will fall if the foundation is not stable. The limbs will sway in the wind if they are not firmly planted. We will crumble into chronic illness when we refuse to view our body as a whole part, working together.
We live in a time that dictates we believe a bizarre set of impossibilities with mainstream medical patterns. Without a doubt, emergency trauma treatment is a modern miracle that has saved many lives. Beyond that, the day to day medical system generally does not look at or treat our bodies as a whole unit.
Personally, that goes against how I am interpreting God’s intent for our bodies. How did I get there? Here is one example (realizing that God is speaking of the comparison of the Body of Christ, yet He is so clear on our physical bodies that I interpret it with some literal meaning as well)…
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
~ 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (NIV)
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But infact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
As Christians, we can have different interpretations of the Bible. The Holy Spirit reveals the truth through our reading.
Our life experiences will give us different eyes in which we see scripture and it will change during our walk with Christ. Only through my decades of chronic illness and being a Christian do I have the eyes that I have today, that are by no means always correct. They are just the eyes in which I see.
God’s Word remains the same yet interpretations can sometimes fail us. God’s love never fails so I choose to have eyes to see outside the box that “church” can sometimes keep us in. As humans, none of us will always get it right. Church is made of up us imperfect humans.
With love, we can accept that not everything is black and white. We can reduce our judgment of others and increase our kindness while so many are chronically ill and just simply need love.
Even the chronically ill can love on others. Through our own sufferings, we can learn a greater compassion for others.
I have very strong viewpoints but choose to accept that others do too. I pray I have more acceptance of those who choose the opposite in health choices, the same as I yearn for those to accept my choices in a more peaceful manner.
I am the one who becomes bankrupt if I do not choose to love on people, NOT their medical choices. And others become bankrupt when they cannot love those who do not agree with their medical choices.
As one body of Christ, I do believe it is possible for different choices in health care. Sometimes I ponder on acceptance more than choices. I will admit, I struggle with that one. I know I am wrong so I am willing to seek God’s will and work on it.
What if all of this is meant to be about loving each other more? What if I were meant to love more on those who choose mainstream medical?
God is big enough for many complexities in people and society norms.
What would “church” look like if we loved on each other regardless of our health care choices?????
Take the donuts out of the foyers of the church. Replace them with fresh fruit and I will see this quite differently.
See how fruit-loopy and even judgmental this can get?
God’s greatest commandment, love!!!!!
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
~ Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Without love, we have nothing. Our medical choices and beliefs are quite empty without love.
