Posts Tagged ‘spirit’

Waiting in Hope

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Mike lives in a body distorted by cerebral palsy. His mind is fine; he’s intelligent and engaging and has a wonderful sense of humor. But his body twists and turns in upon itself with random jerks and contortions. When asked what he hopes for, Mike says, “A new body.” He doesn’t really say it because Mike is not able to speak. Instead, his clubbed hand with outstretched thumb must jab at a word pad. After Mike labors for a stretch of time, a disembodied mechancial voice says, “A new body.”

How do you wait in hope when what you hope for is not possible in this world?

For some of you with physical impairments, disabilities, or disease, complete physical healing will not come this side of heaven. In the midst of this truth, God must still be sufficient.

Mike longs for a new body, and he has been promised one, but he has longer to wait. Even knowing his suffering, Mike would join to tell you the words of Psalm 33:20-21: “Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.”

Mike, living daily in physical suffering, would say to us, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

In truth, with the pain and suffering of sin and death, this world is never going to be a place of ultimate healing. That realm is reserved for heaven, where it is said that God “…will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

In the meantime, however, God has promised to be with us. He has given us his Son. He has given us his Spirit. He has provisions to comfort us through the love, lives, and examples of other people. God lives. Hope lives. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

In some ways, I wish I could tell you that your current suffering is your last suffering. This simply isn’t true. What I can tell you is that God is able to sustain you through your suffering and help you find your way to healing. It may not be the complete healing of heaven, but it will be sufficient for now in this world. And each time you successfully navigate your way through suffering to healing, it will be easier to find the path the next time. For there will be a next time, and a time after that. And each time, God will be with you.

Look for God in the rainbow, in the comfort of others, in the example of Jesus, in the whisper of your prayers, in the certainty of his Word, in the presence of his Spirit, and in the touch of his love.

SOURCE: Chapter 8: “Vision,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Finding a Common Purpose With a Perfect God

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Intimacy is enhanced by experiencing a common purpose. People at odds with each other are rarely able to achieve true intimacy on a deep emotional level. So how do you find a common purpose? It is difficult enough with couples who truly love each other.

We are so different from God, how can we achieve a common purpose?

The answer is through Christ. Listen to Paul, “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:1-2). Having the mind of Christ allows us to bridge the gap between our own wants and desires and the will of God.

Oh, we may want a common purpose with God, but often we ask God to agree to our purposes. Rick Warren says in the very beginning of his exceptional book, The Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about you.” Finding a common purpose with God is all about God. You must trust him to know and understand the purposes that are perfectly suited for you. This requires obedience, an invaluable component of spiritual intimacy with God. Obedience keeps us in a love relationship with him. Jesus put it quite simply: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Does this mean that God no longer loves us when we are disobedient? Of course it doesn’t! What it does mean is that a continual, willful pattern of disobedience and disrespect is as harmful to your relationship with God as it would be to another person.

In Fresh Encounter, Henry Blackaby and Claude King deal with this concept of love and obedience. They write, “If you return to your first love, a love relationship with God, you will resolve the disobedience problem in your life.” Work on your loving relationship with God, and obedience will follow as a natural consequence.

We are not reaching for a perfect relationship with God; we’re reaching for a relationship with a perfect God. Don’t worry about trying to attain perfection; God’s already got that covered. Just work on getting to know and love him more each and every day. This spiritual intimacy will allow his Spirit to reach down into your deepest pain and bring healing to your life.

SOURCE: Chapter 6: “Spiritual Intimacy,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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7 Ways to Grow Through Life’s Storms

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Your road to becoming strong again must work through the whole series of past storms that have wreaked havoc on your body, soul, and spirit. But the good news is that now you know you weathered those storms; they helped you grow in ways that you were not even aware and they have shaped you into the person you have now become. Often it’s only when our eyes have been washed clear with buckets of tears that we will ever get a handle on the larger vision for ourselves and our place in the world.

Although you may never fully understand why or how the storms of your past have freshened the air your breathe today, you can find a healthy, new perspective that grants you the freedom to:

  1. Take time to think; it is the source of your power.
  2. Take time to play; it is the secret of your youth.
  3. Take time to read; it is the foundation of your knowledge.
  4. Take time to dream; it will take you to the stars.
  5. Take time to laugh; it really is your best medicine.
  6. Take time to pray; it is your tough with the almighty God.
  7. Take time to reach out to others; it will give your life significance.

It’s hard to believe that a person like Mother Teresa ever fell victim in anger or animosity to her past. Perhaps it’s because of how she always saw the impoverished of body and spirit through the eyes of Christ. As you ponder those difficult areas of your past — ghosts that may still haunt you and that remain hurtful — allow the words Mother Teresa often spoke to sweep over your spirit:

“I come to you, Jesus, to take your touch before I begin my day. Let your eyes rest upon my eyes for awhile. Let me take to my work the assurance of your friendship. Fill my mind to the last, through the desert of noise. Let your blessed sunshine fill my thoughts, and give me strength for those who need me.”

SOURCE: Chapter 5: “Removing the Ghosts of Your Past” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Affirming Action for Eating Disorders: Are You Ready to Give Your Body to God?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

As National Eating Disorder Awareness Week comes to a close, I would like to share with you the end-of-chapter Affirming Action from Chapter 10, “Reclaiming the Gift of Health,” in my book, Hope, Help and Healing for Eating Disorders: A Whole-Person Approach to Anorexia, Bulimia and Overeating:

Consider these verses: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him: for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

How long has it been since you considered your body a temple? Have you ever thought of yourself that way? God does. He considers your body as sacred. So sacred, he considers it an appropriate place for his Spirit to dwell.

In this world, you are also God’s hands and his feet. You are part of the body of Christ.

Up to now, you have considered your body your own. You have decided that you can treat, or mistreat, your body however you choose. You may have given God your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength — but you have withheld his sovereignty over your body. You have chosen to continue to conduct your eating disorder on a body that does not truly belong to you any longer.

Are you ready to give your body to God? Are you ready to submit to his will concerning your body? And what is his will? For you to recognize your body as his temple, sacred to him.

I am learning to trust my body to function and heal as God designed it to. I am learning to accept and love all of me … my body included.

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Loving Yourself from the Inside Out: Karen’s Story

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

With the following excerpt from my book, Hope, Help and Healing for Eating Disorders: A Whole-Person Approach to Anorexia, Bulimia and Overeating, I share the story of a woman who struggled with an eating disorder for years. It is my hope that, in support of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Karen’s story will inspire you to love yourself from the inside out. Though protecting the health of your body is critical, so is protecting the health of your spirit.

“After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church,” the pastor said, quoting Ephesians 5:29.

At this point in the sermon, Karen stopped listening. The lesson continued, but she traveled off into a swirling eddy of memories and thought triggered by that passage.

After all, no one ever hated his own body …

Not hating your body was stated as a simple aside, as if the concept itself were a given. But it wasn’t a given to Karen. Even now, she fought to remember that God expected her to love her body.

Her body. She was expected to love her body. This verse wasn’t talking about her mind or her soul or her intellect. It specifically said “body” — her flesh, her bones, her hair and teeth. Her legs and arms. Even her breasts, her hips, her thighs.

KAREN’S STORY

There was a time in her life when the thought of loving her body had been as foreign to her as grace. For years, Karen hated her body with an active, punishing hate accompanied by action. She hated how she looked. She hated who she was. She hated who others wanted her to be. That hatred fueled the need to deprive her body of any sort of compassion.

After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it …

For several years, Karen had chosen not to feed or care for her body. Instead, she starved it into submission. With an iron will she resisted its attempts at self-preservation. The more she hungered, the less she ate. When she subjugated hunger, she took on thirst. Every bite, every sip, was done with elaborate calculation and extreme prejudice. She resented her body and its needs. It felt unclean to her. Starvation was pristine — no consumption, no elimination.

In Karen’s mid-twenties, her anorexia turned into bulimia. No longer able to beat her hunger and thirst into submission, she indulged it beyond measure. Oh, Karen fed her body — but only for a little while. Until she purged and felt clean again.

All through this time, Karen had loved God. But often she also feared him and felt distant from him. Yet she clung to the promise of his love, even as she struggled with loving herself. Slowly she was awakening to the thought of actually caring for herself, instead of only caring about herself.

Karen was striving to know God and to trust his expectations.

A CHANGE IN FOCUS

Up to this point, your eating disorder has centered your focus on your outside appearance. You have focused on your desire to be thin. As such, your life has revolved around diets and weight. But inside is where you really live. The body is just a shell — a perishable one, at that — which God full intends to replace.

It is your inside, your spirit, that lasts forever. And this obsession with controlling the body is imprisoning your spirit.

The terrible irony of an eating disorder is that damage being done to the inside, in the name of the outside, will eventually migrate to the outside. Healing comes when you decide to refocus your efforts from diets and weight (the outside) to nutrition and support for your body (the inside). You need to mentally go from food as friend, or food as fat, to food as nutrition. It can be extremely difficult to make this mental jump on your own. You may need to start with a spiritual refocusing.

Self-hate argues against the truth of God’s love for you and the great value you have. It blinds you to an awareness of the beauty of God’s creation that lies uniquely in you. The negative inner message of self-hate deafens your ability to hear God’s voice singing over you as a precious, valued human being. You can decide to stop listening to your self-hate and decide to hear the truth of God’s love for you.

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