Wellness Series
Health is knowing your own patterns—emotional and physical—and understanding “signals” your body gives you1.
Your ‘body’ is made up of all three essential parts for being a complete person: the spirit (holy or evil) you, the soulful (emotional/psychological) you, and, of course, the physical (flesh, blood and water) you.
We are all inborn with God’s breath of life and, therefore are made in His image. But God, our Creator, gives us free will to accept Him as Lord and Savior of our souls through His Son, Jesus Christ. So, as far as we are made in the image and likeness of God, we all have a sense of what is right and of what is wrong, a feeling or a knowing when you do something that goes against what is right. It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘guilty conscience’. The moment you do wrong, you feel it or sense it or know it. This happens to all humanity no matter where they place their faith.
Patterns are like habits. It’s what you do regularly and repeatedly. For example, your daily living pattern may be to rise up early, have quiet time with the Lord in prayer and reading His word, followed by bath and breakfast, then off to school or work. Later, after all the schooling and working, you come home to dinner, then homework, watch a little television, join the family in evening devotion, then sleep. This is a pattern you follow every day oftentimes unconsciously—you don’t have to ‘think’ about it; you automatically do it.
Wellness has to do with how these patterns in your life effect your spiritual growth, peace of mind, and quality of (abundant) living.
When your physical body is overworked, it sends a ‘signal’ that it needs rest; and will either get sick thereby forcing you to stop working, or you’ll experience an ‘ache’ somewhere—a headache, backache, heartache. The signal is pain or impending pain. The signal gets your attention; otherwise, you’d be riding on auto mode without taking time to assess how much damage you’re doing to your physical body. Some folks experience heart attacks when they’ve never had a heart problem. It’s just that too much stress was put on the body and the heart crashed.
A signal is an action, movement or sound which gives information, a message, a warning or an order.
TAKE TIME TO LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR BODY IS SIGNALING.
When your soul is experiencing pain or impending pain, the signal is called ‘worry’ or ‘fear’ or ‘disappointment’. We worry when we want to control a situation and, no matter how much we try, we cannot; then we start complaining and become embittered. Sister Joyce always wished for her older sister to simply accept and love her. But older sis was so envious, that she regularly humiliated her little sis in the presence of family, friends and strangers. Joyce would buy great gifts, or wash clothes, cook and clean for big sis. Big sis did her best not to show appreciation for anything little sis did. This pattern continued for so long, that by the time Joyce was well into her 40s, she still tried to gain her big sister’s approval about everything from her choice of a husband to the choices of schools for her children to attend. Many daughters also share this same excruciating experience with their mothers.
The ‘worry-fear-disappointment’ signal is often covered by forgive and forget, turn the other cheek, do good to the person and not evil, and all the scriptures that reference forgiveness and doing good in spite of persecution (or humiliation, lack of appreciation and love). The scripture tells us Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). The pattern of Joyce and her big sister shows that Joyce was overcome with evil.
Turning the other cheek does not mean always putting your face in evil’s way for you to be slapped. Doing good for a person is right, but it is not right when you do it just to be liked (or loved) and then disappointed when the ‘like’ or ‘love’ doesn’t come. Forgiving is the anecdote (the cure) for soul sickness, definitely; but it shouldn’t become a habitual pattern for the relationships you have with folks who despise the Christ in you. Even Jesus had to leave his hometown because of the haters (Matthew 13:53-58).
Evil is anything that makes the soul sick. The evidence (or effect, or symptom) of a sick soul is:
1. Constant crying;
2. Fear of expressing to that person how that person makes you feel; and
3. Living a life of constant disappointment.
These effects will crush all hope for living a life of spiritual strength and abundance because your focus is on being accepted or unconditionally loved by a person, not the Savior. These effects will not allow you to be free to express who you really are because you fear rejection by the person from whom you seek approval and appreciation, and doubt how valuable God created you to be. Finally, these effects will snatch you from the Kingdom of God because you refuse to look upward for the true love that is in CHRIST JESUS; and you will not acknowledge, nor testify about the greatness of Christ in you. You cannot save lost souls if your own soul is lost in looking for what it cannot find on earth, or in another person. These effects oppress the soul---the soul is in prison bound by the evil spirit of heaviness caused by the evil spirit of rejection.
Here’s the mystery made plain: YOU ARE A SPIRIT-SOUL BEING FIRST. You cannot pursue what unifies the Spirit of God – Soul connection until you connect completely with the source of life—the SPIRIT OF GOD which gives life to your soul through faith, or belief, in Jesus Christ. Your physical body is a mere ‘house’ for the real you. The real you is your soul. The Soul you is what will live eternally in heaven, or it will die in hell. Living a life of pursuing approval by those who can’t appreciate the CHRIST IN YOU is killing your soul by shocking it with pain consistently.
You overcome evil with good. Good is anything that makes the soul strong and healthy—what is referred to as WELL. Is it well with your soul? Are you experiencing unspeakable joy in the Lord? Good is filling up your soul with the Word of God; and changing your mind to focus on Philippians 4:8-9 which imbibes you with the peace of God. You also overcome evil by moving out of its way—letting go of anything or anyone who does not love the Christ in you—and clinging to Jesus becoming one with Him.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE SIGNALS YOUR BODY IS SPEAKING AND, IN PRAYER, UNDERSTAND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM. THEN DO WHAT THE LORD SAYS. ONLY HE CAN CHANGE YOUR SITUATION. TRUST IN HIM.
© 2020 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by The Liight In Me Enterprise. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
1. Travis, J. (1977). The Wellness Workbook. Mill Valley, CA, USA: Wellness Resource Center.
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