The Sneaky Shift of Wellness to Worship

A return to Christ-centered wholeness.

Take a Breath Before You Read This

I read this quote this week from Tyler Stanton, author of Familiar Stranger.

Before you read it, take a deep inhale, exhale, and think about your desires for body change and/or better health.
Next, step back from this moment and think about how much you think about your body and your desires to improve your health.

Did you do it?
Okay, now you’re ready.
Read.

“Why my ego becomes the ear I’m listening with, even my spiritual life can devolve into narcissism focused on 'me' not 'Thee.' Worship becomes a quest for experiential self-fulfillment, obedience is traded for gratifying personal dreams and passions, spiritual practices are diluted into methods of personal wellness. And the aim of discipleship – to become like Christ, a gift of others-centered love freely given – gets subtly replaced by new goals of spiritual thrill-seeking or personal peace.”
— Tyler Stanton

My goodness. Did you get the Holy Spirit gut check you needed? I sure hope so.

This is the tricky thing about the call on my life from God—to help people love Him and their bodies. If we’re not careful, all our healthy habits and behavior changes can so easily devolve into pursuing God just to get Him to give us what we want.

How easily we find ourselves in the gym or walking with our weighted vests worshipping me rather than Thee.

Spiritual practices diluted into methods of personal wellness.

You don’t have to look far or scroll long to come across the proselytizing of cottage cheese everything, upping your protein, longevity hacks, neuroplasticity, and nervous system resets. None of this information is wrong or unhelpful, but please, let us all remember today—they are the secondary things.

The last thing I want my contribution to be in this space of health and wellness is just another soundwave of wellness-making noise.

Wellness is defined as the absence of sickness and disease and the active pursuit of health. But why?
Why are we pursuing health?
Why am I wanting anything I want in a moment, for that matter?

Romans 1:25 comes to mind “…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature (their body or other people’s bodies) rather than the Creator.” (emphasis mine)

Friends, I can’t be responsible for your heart. Each man or woman must be for their own.

So please—eat better to feel better. Move your body because it helps you think, feel, and choose better.

The better is following Jesus all the way—even if He walks you right into a fire.
(Trust me, He most certainly will.)

And when those times of trial and testing come—I’m personally living inside one of my life’s big ones right now—you will have prepared your body, soul, heart, and mind to stay in the fire with Jesus and let the fire do its perfect work.

(A no filter picture taken out my hotel window last week in Denver, Co. I would title this: “Good Morning, Alisa. xoxo, God”.)

He’s worthy of it all.

This is why we train. We train to remain with Thee.

Wellness is for the remaining with God - the absence of sickness and disease and the active pursuit of all things being restored to health and good.

So what are we to do?

First, take another breath, get quiet, and ask yourself these two simple and real wellness check questions:

1. How much do I think of God during my day?

2. How much do I think about the wellness of me?

Listen, your answer is probably not much different than the person climbing the corporate ladder or the social scene.

We so easily bypass and forget God.

And now, the only proper thing to do is repent.

Turn back to God.

Take some time to enjoy Him by simply thinking about Him and being with Him.
We do being with God by being present to HIm in our bodies and with our bodies.
We can encounter His pleasure right now—because His heart overflows with delight and pleasure towards anyone who chooses Him.

Second, our life is probably too busy and too noisy. At best, we spend a little time with Him in the morning, and then we get on with our high-speed, noisy day—entertaining and informing our minds with all forms of podcasts, video and media.

Try setting a goal today of turning the inner posture of your heart toward God in the middle of your hectic day. It only takes one minute. Surely we can give Him one intentional, hard fought hallelujah, minute.

Here’s what I do:
I turn my face toward God.
I take a breath, drop my shoulders, throw my head back into the cradle of my scapula blades, widen my heart, and say,
“Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I trust you.”
I say it a few times until I sense the peace in my body—the peace God wired my nervous system to receive.

I’m going to keep showing up in your inbox with the best of what I’ve got—so you can love God with all of who you are. That includes your body.

Just do me a favor: keep your heart and hands clean.

We’ll all know we are growing in TRUE bodily health when our hearts look more and more like Jesus’s—with “others-centered love freely given.”

What our bodies look and feel like are not as important as looking more like God.

Here’s this weekend’s walk and talk with me.
I share all the goodness of God I saw in the land of the living last week at our first-ever Health Summit, as well as at Rev On the Road in Denver, CO.

I think it will encourage you as much as it encouraged me.

Peace,
Alisa