Going up the hill…

While at a health retreat, going through a cleansing of the body, my sister and I had to take a walk after each meal which was morning meal and evening meal. One mile to the end of the road and one mile back. On this road, was a high hill that we had to climb up as we walked back toward the retreat. Boy was that a chore. Especially because we are not used to hills like that. Being in the flat lands of Texas, we don’t have hills to climb like that, so that was a motive to have to put it in first gear to get our legs to go up that road. Now going down this hill we had to hold on to each other to make sure we didn’t slide or fall on the rocks. When a car drove up that hill it made it ok and quickly, but while walking, we had to hold on to each other to pull ourselves up and make it to the top while being very winded I might add. It only proved how bad out of shape I and my sister with me on this retreat was. The first week on this retreat, was a struggle on these climbs, but by the second week, we had it made.

It only showed us that keeping our bodies in shape is what God wants from us. Our bodies are the temple of God. And while we become couch potatoes or just sit around doing nothing while our bodies go out of shape, is not the idea of good health etiquette. We must keep in mind that all that we do or don’t do to our bodies is a form of worship to God. If we take care of ourselves by what we eat, or what we do physically, if we do it to the glory of God then we are doing good. If we put bad stuff in our bodies, and don’t exercise or don’t do anything to keep in shape, we are not worshipping God in the right manner.

I know that this was a message to us that we needed to rethink our lifestyle and how we need to build up our strength physically just as we do spiritually. Being spiritually strong is wonderful, by our physical strength needs to match that of the spiritual, because our minds needs to stay sharp, and while we eat spiritual food and exercise our lives with God, we need to physically build our strength to keep our spirituality going.

Satan told Eve in the garden; “You shall not surely die.” And what happened? Sin took the world. He uses this same tactics over appetites now as he used in the beginning. He tells us, you shall not surely die if you eat this flesh meat, or this cookie, or drink this wine, or abuse alcohol. And his temptations become a habit that can’t be broken on our own. We give in because our carnal hearts and minds are week and easily accessible to give into the wiles of the enemy. And then later on, our bodies die of disease and medication and we have surely died from our appetite as Eve and Adam did. God said, because you have done this, I will give you what you desired because you didn’t heed my warnings. Then we pray and ask forgiveness because now we are riddled with pain and suffering and disease. The body has becomes dis-eased. Then we go to Dr’s and get on medications that don’t cure a thing, but mask the symptoms and cause side effects that needs medication for that.

Take a moment, and listen to what your body is telling you. Even if you are a vegan or vegetarian, you still have to keep in check what you are eating. Is the food full of chemicals? Is it processed? Is it truly good for you? How many times a day do you eat? Do you snack throughout the day? Do you eat and then just sit and not do anything to help with the digestion?

If man has anything to do with the processing of the food you buy it isn’t safe. Only when you grow your own food and know the food you grow yourselves can you be sure that it is safe. Learn to work with a green thumb. Learn to become one with your food, that you know it is of your own hands. Stop eating processed and contaminated foods from the industry. That is what causes so many diseases. If you can’t trust it, don’t use it. If it has a long list of ingredients, don’t bother. If you are a meat eater, meat has so much wrong with it that you have no idea.

So many people get food poisoning, and die of all of the things that are put in the food; hormones, pesticides, animals processed with the diseases they carry, dead animals being used not knowing how long they have been dead. Give your body a chance to heal naturally. God made all of the herbs and all of the good things to eat and drink to keep us alive and healthy. Go on a fast and cleanse out the toxins in the body, exercise, eat healthier.

At this retreat, we went on a 10 day green smoothie fast, and it cleaned us out for sure. We walked 4 miles a day after each meal. And the smoothies were our meals. One at breakfast and one at dinner around 3 pm. And nothing in between until the next day. It was hard, but the detoxing was necessary. “Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation…The health of the entire system depends upon the healthy action of the respiratory organs… If we would have health, we must live for it.” Healthful Living p. 30.

Every cell of your body requires nutrition, oxygen and the removal of waste in order to thrive and survive. Hardening of the arteries reduces oxygen and nutrient concentrations to every cell of the body including the brain. Memory, learning and all mental cognitive skills are dependent upon a steady stream of oxygen and nutrition.

Going up that hill only showed us how out of shape we were. We were panting, and our legs were hurting, and our bodies were in total shock. It is good to see that once we did it everyday for 14 days, our bodies were more accepting of the challenge and that we knew we were growing stronger as we kept going. And I made the promise to myself that when I returned home, I would continue this routine of walking and doing exercise in the mornings and afternoon. I don’t have a gym like they have at the retreat, but I certainly can make one up. And the walking I do up and down my road even though it is flat, and not 2 miles both ways, I make sure I take it in several trips back and forth. I also am promising myself to eat twice a day at the same time every day. Our bodies need 5 to 6 hours to digest the meal we had before the next; and we shouldn’t snack in between or eat a heavy meal after 6pm. Not one morsel of food is to go into he mouth in between meals, or the food from the first meal doesn’t digest and it putrefies in the gut and causes problems. This is what we learned at the health retreat. When we do not go by the health plans that God gives us, we defile the body, and cause dis-ease. A disease symptom happens when one or more of the body’s organs of elimination are not working properly, which are the colon, lungs, kidneys, skin, liver. The symptoms of disease happen when you have not been eating and living right, according to the laws of health. But a symptom of repair happens when you have been doing everything right and all of your elimination organs have been working well. Usually, it happens after a short period of feeling very good (one to three days.) This means you are not sluggish, tired, feeling like your body is shutting down. Once you have these organs working properly you are on the road to recovery. How do you do that? Go on a green smoothie detox for 10 days solid. And drink water in between when you begin to feel hungry. Watch what happens in the body.

Remember: An increase in EXERCISE provides a decrease in EXTRA SIZE.

Just as going up the hill on the road struggling at the first few days of this new journey, we struggle spiritually on our walk with Christ. But being persistent and walking in the footsteps of Christ every day, learning and growing in His character, we realize we have strengthened our spiritual walk and it gets easier every day. Obeying His commandments, and living a life of Christian character, we grow closer to God. Like our bodies which are temples of the Holy Spirit, once we reverse the illnesses we placed upon them, we become stronger physically to become stronger spiritually. Exodus 15:26 says; “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that health thee.”