Looking back at the articles I’ve been writing since late December, and judging from what others in the natural health space on and offline have been writing as well whether from Godly or secular perspectives, it would appear that we need to go into 2023 with an eye to our mental, emotional, and spiritual health, not just our physical health. Because what we feed our bodies impacts our endocrine system, and because exercise and sleep also benefit overall body health one way or another, tending to our physical needs wisely can ensure that physiologically, we are operating on an even keel. However, because we are so much more than just our bodies, tending to our soul and spirit is extremely important as well.
Running to God first when we are troubled is key number one. This step alone can keep the stress of life as we know it from tearing our health to shreds.
Keeping a cool, thoughtful, investigative head is key number two. You can’t make wise decisions if you are fearful, anxious, or worse, freaking out or losing your mind over what is going on around you. There will be more stresses coming down the pipe in coming years, so get into the habit of turning to God first and foremost, and getting into what I sometimes call “duty mode” where you tend to the needs of your household first so that you can enjoy wants later. More and more this will require creativity to accomplish, but decision-making under a heavy cloud, or while running from lightening, is never wise.
Reaching out to people in your community, on or offline is key number three. God created us for community, He did not create us as self-sustaining islands. God gave you talents, skills and giftings that He didn’t give someone else, you need each other. This is key number three, and part of what is necessary to looking after your mental, emotional, spiritual and social health. This is one of the reasons the string pullers used isolation to such great effect these past three years. It’s a favourite tactic of the abuser: isolate, bombard, control. Be a societal rebel and connect with your community! Your spirit and soul will thank you!
Lastly, because we live in a digital age with at least half our social circles online across social media, go out of your way to include non-doom elements in your daily newsfeeds! Look up National Geographic pages or groups on your favourite social media platform. Find pages or groups that share nothing but wildlife or landscape scenes or clean, funny memes and jokes. When you come across an article or video that put a smile on your face, share it with your online circles to put a smile on their faces too. Disrupt the doom scrolling with something to smile about. Did a verse jump off the page when you were having your daily devotions? Share that on your newsfeed as well, along with why it made you stop and think. If you are creative, open your favourite graphics editor (I use photopea these days) and put the verse in a pretty frame before sharing it.
If after adding those things to your newsfeed, you still get depressed scanning the day’s activity online, go offline and do something useful for the household or a neighbour nearby. Be productive in some fashion. If what you saw online made you think, “I really need to address that”, then go address it, or go plan how to address it and make a todo for the day you can actually do it. But whatever you do, do NOT allow yourself to stew in the mental, emotional state that allows the string pullers to control you!
God is concerned for your welfare, your eternal welfare! The decisions you make now will have eternal ramifications for you, particularly where you spend eternity. Many are dying now from the jabs and entering a godless eternity because they did not choose Jesus while they were alive in the body. If you are reading this and haven’t yet made the eternal choice to repent of your sin and accept Jesus’ gift of salvation, I urge you to do that now! If you don’t have a clue what I’m referring to, read the book of John, chapters 1 to 3 at the bare minimum, then ask God to forgive your sins and come live inside you. It’s up to you if you truly mean that request or not, because if not, you will still enter a godless eternity if all that prayer was, was empty rhetoric to get out of jail free. But if you meant it, life will begin to change in subtle ways that give you hope where it didn’t exist before, help where it may not have appeared before, God’s presence where you never felt it before, and wisdom to get through coming days where there was only silence before. God says He will go through life’s trials with us. He doesn’t promise to remove us from them, but He does promise to go with us through them, and to show us how to go through them so that we come out of each trial stronger than we went in. As noted in the previous blog article, God is the missing piece of the puzzle that other religions are trying to fill the void with. That void will remain however, until God Himself, Jesus Christ, fills that void. He can do that for you today if you will allow Him.
How you go through 2023 is ultimately up to you, but I’d go with Christ if I were you.
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