You Are Designed To Shine!
In the world that we live in, we get messages everywhere we look that we are inadequate. These messages come from unexpected sources sometime. Quite often it’s those closest to us who perpetuate these lies. I have never understood why people who profess to love us can speak words that we seem to be unable to recover from for as long as we live. They echo through the chambers of our heart and mind like ghostly shadows that lure us into anxiety and depression like the Pied Piper. Sometimes it’s the classic, abusive parent or schoolteacher who tells us that we will never amount to anything but other times it’s subtle statements that are intended to keep us doubting ourselves, submissive and fearful that we are unworthy of love. Guess what. It’s ALL a lie. You are designed to be awesome and have everything that you need to succeed at whatever you set your heart and mind to do. One of the statutes of the Bible states simply that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. If you have never had a course in physiology, you cannot imagine how true this statement is. There are over 20 chemical reactions that take place every time we take a breath. We are designed to thrive, not merely survive and we are more than able to do just that.
Things Are Not Always As They Seem
One of my pet peeves is religiosity that seeks to keep people beat down, feeling like they are not good enough. There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus that indicates such negative programming. He ALWAYS taught the opposite. In His very act of coming to Earth, He showed our worth. In Acts 20:28, there is a reference to the fact that we, His church, have been bought with “the blood of God”. Listen up! GOD DIDN’T DIE FOR JUNK. The God of THE UNIVERSE was willing to shed His Blood, suffer, die, suffer the insult of the grave, come back to life, walk the Earth, ascend into Heaven and is coming back again JUST FOR US. Believe me, you are important and have access to all the strength that you will ever need to make any healthy changes that you need to make.
If you do not know this God, it’s easy. Talk to Him. He will answer. Odds are you won’t hear an audible voice, but He will answer, and you will know. If you have been beaten down by life and false religion, you can know a God who sees you as precious and chosen before the foundation of the Earth to be His. It doesn’t matter what you have done. His Blood atones for everything and makes every wrong right. From the moment you accept this free gift of eternal life, your wrong-doing is removed from you as far as the East is from the West. You are empowered to overcome, not to fail.
As a child of The King, you can walk with confidence that everything is eventually going to work out in your favor. All things work together for our benefit even though we do endure hardship. All that really matters is who wins. We do. To be absent from the body is to be present with The Lord. To live is to be anointed as His and walk in power, to die is gain because we will actually be with Him in a state of endless glory. There’s no way we can lose with the stuff we use. You can be certain that your strength comes from an endless well that springs up with whatever you need to accomplish your task.
Your body was designed to be strong and resilient. A human being is a complex group of highly sophisticated systems that have almost limitless backup resources for survival. Do you realize how hard we have to try to destroy our health? It takes years of abuse and neglect to tear down this intricate vessel that we inhabit. Our blood vessels even take a different path when we have coronary blockage. That is, until they can’t. Why on Earth do we keep abusing ourselves until we manage to take our own lives, slowly and painfully when we can nurture and care for this marvelous creation with good nutrition, moderate exercise, rest and learning to avoid unnecessary stress?
First Things First
In Daniel 1:8-16 we can read the account of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah who were taken as hostages into Babylon. They were given rich foods to eat that were expected to make them strong, healthy and attractive. It was described as “the king’s meat”. The Hebrew children asked to be excused from the dietary habits that were not in keeping with their lifestyles and religious practices. The man in charge of them was afraid to allow them to eat the plain vegetables and water that they requested because he thought that they would be weak and look sickly. Daniel persuaded him to allow them to eat the healthy diet for a trial period and go from there. Was the overseer ever surprised when, at the end of the 10-day trial they looked better than the captives who had eaten the king’s dainties! Daniel, a slave boy, was eventually made the chief of the wise men, chancellor of the “university” of the times and ruler of all the Hebrew captives and governor of the province of Babylon. He got his lifestyle in place first and success was soon to follow! GET YOUR NUTRITION FIXED if you want to achieve your goals. The odds were stacked against Daniel as a captive in a strange land but because he was true to what he knew to be right, he rose to power. Your capabilities are staggering but you will never realize your full potential until you take responsibility for your health and welfare.
As you begin to be aware of the needs of your physical body and care for yourself, you will soon realize that stress reduction is next. Even atheist scientists will admit that those who practice some form of spirituality are more healthy than others. There is nothing more comforting than knowing that God is in control regardless of what happens. His ways really are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. When all Hell is raging, with faith, it’s possible to find peace. When we say to make your world small, we mean to cut out all the negativism in your world. Fill your world with the love of God and fear, doubt and dread will begin to take it’s rightful place far from you. You will still have struggles but you will be able to find peace in the midst of the storm.
With good nutrition, faith and whatever exercise that your doctor will allow you to do, you can meet your goals and be the best version of you! Never try to be like people you see in the media because most of the time, what you see is not real. Many of those people are unhappy and are literally dying trying to be a version of someone else, not the best version of themselves. It is happening more and more that many media icons are dying way before it’s necessary. They feel hopeless to achieve impossible goals. They feel that they are inadequate and can never please people. Don’t try to please people. Please God. He’s easy. Just accept His free gift of eternal life and He’s happy with you.
You are designed to be happy and successful! God is a perfect engineer. Get healthy. It’s your time to shine.
Dream Big.
Work Hard.
Make It Happen.