Do you consider yourself spiritually healthy? If you said, ‘yes’, you’re in for a slightly rude awakening! In church last Sunday, we talked about what it means to be a healthy follower of God. Our pastor segmented areas in our lives in which humans, in general, are slaves to or weak in: Spiritually, Relational, Emotional, Financial, and Physical. After this message, I realized that I was not as spiritually healthy as I had thought. I still have so much to work on still to become a Healthy Individual for God, and that’s absolutely fine! That’s exactly what our walk with God is all about!
He opened up with this question: What area in your life is God currently trying to highlight (gage focus on, work on, change, shed light to make you see what he wants you to see)? It can be a bad habit, a toxic person, lack or abundance of something mental, the list goes on. Are there certain things that prevent you from experiencing God?
Ask yourself how well you are doing in the following categories:
Spiritually
– Am I being disciplined in reading the Word daily?
– Am I being disciplined in setting aside a few minutes everyday to pray and talk to God?
– Does my daily behavior match/reflect my beliefs?
– Do I exude faith and love towards others?
Relational
– Am I currently experiencing any authentic biblical community?
– Do I have individuals in your life praying for me?
– Do I have individuals in my life holding me accountable for things I want to change or know I need to work on?
– Do I have individuals I go to for spiritual guidance and counseling?
– Are these individuals helping/praying for me on a consistent basis?
Emotional
– Is there anything spilling out of my life that isn’t pleasing to God?
– Am I holding things from my past that prevent me from letting go and experiencing/seeing what God has for my future?
– Is there anything or one slowing me down from experiencing God?
Financial
– Do I worry about my finances or do I trust God so much that it allows me to worry less about my finances?
– The finance line is a huge scale. Money is on one end, God is on the other. Where do I fall on this scale?
– Note that the closer you are to money, the further away you are from God. The closer you are to God, the less you worry about or idolize money.
Physical
– Do I have any diseases?
– Do I have any addictive patterns (drugs, alcohol, sex)?
Now, ask yourself what area in your life you think God has been trying to ‘highlight’? What is God trying to work INTO you and what is God trying to work OUT of you? Be honest in your assessment! You cannot experience God without being completely honest and vulnerable. Once we are in sync with what God’s trying to do in our lives, the faster we begin the process of getting to where he wants us. The sooner we do this, the sooner God reveals to us what he has designed us for!
All 5 of those areas in our life are connected. Once one area becomes a difficult area for us, it becomes a black hole – it eventually beings to suck down the remaining 4 areas in your life.
Now, this also is not an overnight, or even month-long process. This is a process that will take a lot of time, patience, and again, honesty with yourself. Our pastor shared with us a story of his ankle injury. Long story boring, he would need ankle surgery if he wanted to fully heal aka 9-10 months of no activity. For most of us, especially active ones, that is a VERY long time not being able to do anything. He asked if there was any other remedy or something that could speed up the process. The doctor put it in these terms: You can either fix the issue right now and spend only 9-10 months healing/rebuilding strength, or you can go the rest of your life with on-going and reoccurring ankle pain and issue. With that, you’ll never be able to do anything in full or reach your active potential.
So what kind of life do you want to have? Do you want a life in which you continue to deal with injury in those areas for the rest of your life? Or do you want fix those issues now and do something about it so that you can build for yourself a good foundation and be able to experience God in full?