ARE YOU A SPIRITUAL ANOREXIC? ARE YOU READY WITH READINESS?

These thoughts are added to each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday)
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(Use in your personal or church newsletters)

If you can buy it in a store, wear it on the street, drive it on the highway, watch it in the family room or eat it till you’ve had your fill, isn’t that enough? Feed the body, medicate it against as many illnesses as possible, exercise its muscles and mind, and what else is there?

Well now, that’s where the rub comes in, whether this business of the eternal soul has something worth considering.

Some shout yes, and claim a bright and shining faith. Some hesitantly admit that when eternity comes to call they need to be better prepared. Few want to confess to having a faith that is tattle-tale grey because there isn’t a great deal of readiness in the title.

Still, the numbers are there of those who shrug their shoulders and say that tomorrow is soon enough to worry about it. I mean, after all “There is still tomorrow to get it all done isn’t there.”

Well, yes and no, depending on how much of tomorrow each of us can count on. And it isn’t just about heaven after death. It is also about improving one’s ability to deal with the vicissitudes here on earth.

Eventually, and sometimes sooner than later, the calendar gets rather heavy on both physical and spiritual shoulders.

And so physical exercise is needed to build the body, mental exercise to build the mind and spiritual exercise to build the soul just happens to make good sense.
The reason many want to wait before they get serious about their faith is the same as the misconceptions we sometimes have in other areas.

We cannot fully appreciate health until we have been really sick. Nor truly appreciate cleanliness until we have experienced filth. Nor understand spiritual malnutrition until one day, hopefully not too late, spiritual anorexia is recognized and something is done about it.

Whether in hamlets, cities or country-sides, few people have an occupation that automatically takes care of all three parts of man. At least one of the three gets pushed to the side.

And few would argue that being out of shape is good, so many don’t argue they just make excuses, or don’t even do that. Some, with complete candor just say, “Get off my back.”

In my first pastorate, one small town church and three country churches, most of my parishioners were farmers. As far as physical exercise went, they got it in bucketfuls.

As for things of the spirit, there is something about daily working with green and growing things that calls great attention to the fact of God. When it came to their mental development, some did…some didn’t.

That was an area of choice. An area of self-discipline. And self-discipline, well, it just got squeezed out between the “I oughta” and “I don’t wanna.” Happens all the time.

I will not ask this day about your mind and body, but what shape is your soul in? Well, if it is a weak and festering thing, pale and tattle-tale grey, one day when you go looking for spiritual strength will it be available.

I have not seen one of them, but I have read about movies put together so different endings can be chosen. It is a computer kind of thing but it is a fascinating idea because it demands a changing of the script.

The characters have to react differently to what is happening in order to change the ending.

If faith and repentance and regeneration, perhaps under different names, come into play, then of course the endings of our REAL lives change.

So, take the script of your own life. If along the way you had reacted differently to certain things, consider how the whole script of your life would have been altered. It is a WHAT IF game we all have played.

What would have happened if you had done this or that? Gone here or there? Met this person or that person rather than ones you did meet? You have chosen certain people as your friends, a certain pattern of life to follow, whether to make God number one or further down the list.

My email messages come through Earthlink which has a delightful program called Spam Blocker. It blocks all kind of email messages I have no interest in and which might create for me and my computer harm. In the real world our faith can be considered our personal Spam Blockers.

We live in a changing culture and it is constantly sending us messages and spiritual and moral viruses, and if we don’t block them they do take hold. And they don’t let go. They certainly don’t do that.

There is an old saying, Where we love, we live. Then it follows that if we love God, really love Him enough to follow His commandments, our lives will reflect it.

POSTED RECENTLY ON ONE A DAY YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS
Nov 25…GETTING SOMEWHERE AND FINDING OUT YOU DON’T WANT TO STAY
Nov 17…ARE YOU HAVING INSTALLATION PROBLEMS?
Nov 14…WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE BEST TWO WORDS IN YOUR VOCABULARY?
Nov 13…WHAT SHOULD YOU DO THAT ONE DAY YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT NOW YOU CAN DO?

Have a friend visit my ONE A DAY YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS site. Have them go to Google and where it says “Google Search” type in “Neil Spiritual Vitamins”
Or type in the URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

And, yes, if this site has met any of your needs share it with a friend. Just have them go to “Google Search” and type in “Wyrick’s Writings”
Or type in the URL http://wyrickswritings.blogspot.com/

And, yes, maybe they will back track a few weeks to read other of my musings.

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR FACEBOOK? IF YOU ENJOY THESE WRITINGS COULD YOU CALL ATTENTION TO THIS BLOG? IF YOU DO, THANKS IN ADVANCE.