A 40-Days of Wellness Meditation
By Rev. Chris Harris
“40 Days of Wellness” meets each week (in-person or over Zoom) to support and encourage one another in our health and fitness goals, to learn as well as meet up during the week for various walks, hikes and whatever else people organize. If you’d like to join us, it’s not too late! Sign up here.
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
As Christians we are created by God in the image of God, and we are called to love and serve the world as God loves us.
And notice we don’t do that with our thoughts, but with our bodies. Like Jesus, we are incarnate creatures. We are in the world so we can love the world. And within each of us is the Holy Spirit to inspire us and encourage us.
Our bodies therefore are temples to use Paul’s metaphor, temples to that same spirit that moves our bodies to do the work of love in the world.
Those bodies come in all shapes and sizes, all different colors, all different levels of fitness and ability. God does not make anyone of us any less beautiful than the other or less capable than the other. In the eyes of God we are each amazingly beautiful and uniquely made to love and serve the world with the bodies we have.
If you started this program as a diet or weight loss program I want to encourage you to see that this is a bit more than that. At its core, this is a class about integrating our bodies and our faith so that we might live a more Christ centered life — so that wherever we do with our temples – wherever we walk, whatever we eat, whatever we think, whatever do to exercise — ALL might be done for the glory of God!
Questions to ponder:
1) How does my body enable me to do the work God calls me to do?
2) What do I need to do today to care my temple of the Holy Spirit?
3) How can I honor God with my body?