My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:20-27
As we leave 2022 and head toward 2023, who we pay attention to, who we listen to, who we follow and why we follow them have grave ramifications for our health, spirit, soul and body! Taking God’s Word to heart, seeking Him for wisdom, discernment, insight, foresight, and understanding, and asking God for the means and wherewithal to act wisely on what is revealed, will be very important going forward, although they have always been important, if we are being honest with ourselves.
The above request of God has been on my own lips for decades, and even moreso since 2020 as the voices lacking grounded reason rose to fever pitch in the last 3 years. Even if you don’t follow those voices, simply chancing across them in your daily online trek can be stressful all by itself, because you are reminded who and what NOT to follow and the resolve must be affirmed all over again, sometimes multiple times per day! I wrote a blog article almost a year ago titled “Stress Stops the Heart”. When you lose your focus on God’s ways and Words, you start to follow other voices whose advice and admonitions can have a damning effect on not just your body, but your mental/emotional and even spiritual health!
I am encouraged to hear stories now of doctors and nurses who realized the voices they were listening to, were the ones guiding the deaths of their patients and they are now risking their licenses and practices to get these realizations out there. One voice I read, had been a pulmonologist for over 30 years when covid hit, and although he had that many years of experience, obediently following supposedly expert pandemic voices killed a number of his patients before he realized what was happening and got up the courage to speak out.
The Voice of Truth, God’s Word, shares the principle that we are beholden for what we know and that it is sin to know to do good and not do it. Proverbs here says to remove my foot from evil and not to stray from the path God sets out before me. The world has voices saying that visiting the elderly and caring for the sick is evil while abandoning the elderly and mistreating the sick is good. Scripture says woe to those who call evil good, and good evil!
One of the biggest things you can do going into 2023, is to resolve to only listen to voices who follow the principles of life God has set out in His Word! When we ask God for wisdom, He will show us the Truth that will guide our lives and keep our spirits, souls and bodies from unnecessarily damaging stresses that could send us to an early grave. More than ever, our focus needs to be on God and His guidance through these days, weeks and months ahead!
You can be eating all the right foods for all the right reasons, and still fall ill because one or more body parts gave in to too much stress due to listening and acting on advice from harmful sources.
May God’s Word be the first authority you turn to in 2023.