Health

Talk about being hit right between the eyes.  What I read by Charles Swindoll was about health.  There is no doubt health becomes more of an issue as one gets older. Good and bad things done over a lifetime come home to roost.
Often a change of ways occurs.  Regularly it is too little too late.  Swindoll quotes a humourist who declares “Our bodies tend to be our autobiographies.”  There are things in our DNA and it is going to happen no matter what.  Other things tend to result from lifestyle.  Those things can be altered.
Though, unfortunately for me, I have known what it is like not to listen until it is too late.  Often those saying it have “been there, done that,” or seen over their time lots who have been there.  The advice is built on experience, whereas the hearing is built on preference.
Swindoll mentions three things that are regularly treated as optional extras and are really must haves.   Rest, food and exercise.
So often I treat rest as an inconvenience.  I have heaps to do, and I do not have time for rest.  Like in all things I can forgo it occasionally, but when habitual it comes back to bite.  I have a mate that was so tired he fell out of his car when pulled over.  Not a good look.  Insomnia is a problem for some but is not incurable.
Particularly in our age rest is seen as counterproductive.  Little rest is seen as a part of getting to the top.  It being the expectation, does not make it right.  Why forgo my health for the corporation.  I am easily discarded as there is someone to take my place.
So often the body just needs rest.  It is one of the reasons why in health circles rest is seen as necessary for healing.  I do not think rest is only sleep.  Sometimes it is a break from something that may be consuming me.  It always amazes me how much clearer things can look when I come back to them after a rest.
Food seems to be a biggy right now.  Instant satisfaction.  While it is convenient, it has a hook in it.  Food is full of salt and preservatives.  Sales, not my health, are the chief driver.
Exercise is a must.  I know some who look like heart attacks waiting to happen.  Big boned is the way things are, big bodied is a choice.  Obesity is literally a growing problem.  Once upon a time work accounted for much exercise.  Now for many Gyms fill the gap. It never ceases to amaze me how much better I can feel when I do some exercise.  Not to mention that it does me good.
It is always a case of not over doing it but doing what is right for me.  I am fond of the saying “work fit.”  I might be good for what I need to do, but not for labouring.  Given time I can be work fit for that (though I definitely prefer not to).  I need to always be careful though.  Work fit does not mean I am fit.   Only that dirty word called exercise makes me that, so I may as well get fit by doing something I enjoy.
I am big on first the natural then the spiritual.  In his day, Jesus continually used natural events to highlight spiritual truths.  For myself, I try not to confuse “well meaning” with “right.”  A lack of balance always leads to unwanted consequences.