As I have experienced life for 50 years now, I have seen many forms of exercise. As I have struggled with my own weight and talked to people in the health field, I have come to these conclusions: 1) The environment we spend our time in will determine how we express our need for physical exercise. 2) When we exercise it brings health to our physical bodies and our physical hearts. 3) Movement is movement and all movements count as exercise.
Even when I take a small look at the animal kingdom, I see another example that can be explained this way. My two daughters have guinea pigs. They are in cages and sit around all day. My daughter informed me that average guinea pigs normally move around a lot and even jump up when they are excited. In the wild, although they like to be in caves or tunnels in the ground. They don't just sit around all day, because in the wild, predators force them to move around.
Let's think how this applies to our spiritual lives. In the Word of God, Proverbs 3:5–8 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones."
As believers in God, we are to trust in the Lord, who is our Heavenly Father. We are to entrust our hearts to His understandings and submit to Him and He'll make our paths straight, so we won't be consumed by the predators of evil activity. Be wise according to His standards and not only will this keep you from evil, it will bring health to your physical body as well. Trusting in the Lord and what He tells you to do will bring healing to your spiritual life and physical life.
We know that our mental health and physical health is connected to our physical and spiritual health. And when I say mental health, I am not referring to mental health problems such as depression or disorders such as schizophrenia; I am just referring to basic mental health, such as life-long learning and reading and taking in knowledge. All four aspects of life are connected: physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional.
When I exercise it brings health to all areas of my life and heals what is broken or could be broken in the future from a lack of exercise.
When a guinea pig is brought up in a house such as ours, with a cage, and never has room to move, it will not reach its full potential.
When I don't move physically by exercising or move spiritually by doing things related to building the kingdom of God. I will become content with just staying still and doing nothing.
As people get older, they either will continue to exercise by walking laps in the mall or outside, or they will do things like going to the pool in the morning. When I go to the pool, I see people over 60 and 70 still going to the pool and making the most of their lives. They motivate me to keep coming back and make it a part of my regular routine. Why? Because I know it is healing my physical heart from deteriorating prematurely.
When we put the guinea pigs outside in our yard in the summer time, they don't act like wild guinea pigs or ones that have grown up in a huge living space. They just sit there and do nothing.
When we don't exercise our physical bodies, we encounter more health problems than we normally would, which could lead to a heart attack. When we don't move spiritually by moving out of our comfort zone and challenging ourselves to new opportunities, we default to a hum-drum, stale, spiritual existence.
When we don't look for opportunities to be involved in ministry in the church and outside of the church, our spiritual hearts are dying a premature death. Yes, we will still go to heaven because we believe in Jesus, but we won't experience the most we can this side of heaven. We won't be trusting in the One who created us in the first place.
Parry Stelter is a Bible teacher, author, and speaker. He is founder of Word of Hope Ministries. If you are interested in having Parry do a workshop on dealing with grief, loss and trauma, you can contact him at parry@wordofhopeministries.ca
