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Health is a Blessing Few Appreciate, May 6
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,
which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6:19
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Health is a blessing of which few appreciate the value; yet upon it the efficiency
of our mental and physical powers largely depends. Our impulses and passions
have their seat in the body, and it must be kept in the best condition physically
and under the most spiritual influences in order that our talents may be put to the
highest use.
Anything that lessens physical strength enfeebles the mind and makes it less
capable of discriminating between right and wrong. We become less capable of
choosing the good and have less strength of will to do that which we know to be
right.
The misuse of our physical powers shortens the period of time in which our
lives can be used for the glory of God. And it unfits us to accomplish the work
God has given us to do. By allowing ourselves to form wrong habits, by keeping
late hours, by gratifying appetite at the expense of health, we lay the foundation
for feebleness. By neglecting physical exercise, by overworking mind or body,
we unbalance the nervous system. Those who thus shorten their lives and unfit
themselves for service by disregarding nature’s laws are guilty of robbery toward
God.
And they are robbing their fellow men also. The opportunity of blessing others,
the very work for which God sent them into the world, has by their own course of
action been cut short. And they have unfitted themselves to do even that which in
a briefer period of time they might have accomplished. The Lord holds us guilty
when by our injurious habits we thus deprive the world of good.
Transgression of physical law is transgression of the moral law; for God is as
truly the author of physical laws as He is the author of the moral law. His law is
written with His own finger upon every nerve, every muscle, every faculty, which
has been entrusted to man. And every misuse of any part of our organism is a
violation of that law.
All should have an intelligent knowledge of the human frame that they may
keep their bodies in the condition necessary to do the work of the Lord. The
physical life is to be carefully preserved and developed that through humanity
the divine nature may be revealed in its fullness. The relation of the physical
organism to the spiritual life is one of the most important branches of education. It
should receive careful attention in the home and in the school.... All should place
themselves in the best possible relation to life and health.
Our habits should be brought under the control of a mind that is itself under
the control of God.—
Christ’s Object Lessons, 346-348
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