Your Body - a Temple of the Holy Spirit

Your Body – a Temple of the Holy Spirit

Posted by Lisa

Written September 17, 2011

In the teenage and early twenty years, I’ve seen so many girls lose their health.  They push themselves to be “like the guys,” go to college, work hard, volunteering, help with the family, and all around just take on too much for themselves.  Now, please don’t get me wrong – aside from the “be like the guys” part, ALL of those activities are excellent activities that are actually extremely important.  But there is a point when you have to say no and when you have to take a break.  Ultimately, we forget to take care of ourselves.

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Now you may think I am preaching to the
choir, but I actually know this from personal experience.  It started innocently enough and nothing of my own doing – I was 15 and riding in the back of the van (ironically studying for my driver’s permit) with my family, when Mom (who was driving) got hit by another driver.  It started that day, with some back and neck problems from the accident.  But it kept going.  I took on nursing school (a very hard school to be at in college), work, volunteering, helping with the family, and more…  I was sleeping from about 1:30am-4:30am every night (I had to be at work by 5:30am).  And without boring you with a long story – my health pretty much fell apart.  Not to a serious extent (although it was on the road there), but I was passing out, had anemia, and a bunch of other things that plagued me from day to day.

I have to say I was extremely blessed by my family.  Under my parents’ amazing guidance and others who completely pitched in to help me get better, I was able to stop the rockslide of destruction coming my way.  Other girls are not so blessed.  They continue to push themselves, not seeing that they have a choice in how they handle their lives.  Not realizing or understanding that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

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1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price: therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”  Now, I know some girls cannot stop everything – but it is still important to try very hard to take care of your bodies.  It is important that girls understand when they need to say no and stop volunteering themselves.  It is important to understand where your limit is, so that you get enough sleep and a healthy diet to keep yourselves going.  Our body is meant to glorify Him…it is not our own.  We need to make sure we act in such a way that will bring glory to Him.  This, of course, does not mean flaunting ourselves – but we do need to care for ourselves.

Psalm 139:13-14 is also meaningful while on this topic.  This passage talks about how God is our creator: “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”  God created us and made us fearfully and wonderfully…  Don’t you think that means we should do our best to take care ourselves? 

This week, when going about your daily tasks – try to remember that we are meant to glorify Him.  We need to take care of ourselves, and not get burdened down with everything that we think we need or want to do.  We all have our limits, and most of us know our limits.  It is whether or not we pay attention to and heed those limits in order to take care of ourselves.

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