Faith and Health

I was faced with the prospect of either significantly changing my ways or having a significantly reduced life span. I was and I am very motivated to stay alive. I decided to change but had no idea what to do first or how to find the power to change. My flesh wanted to be left alone and to continue to indulge itself. I had little power to change. But in looking into the face of death, I was urged to not give up.

I found the power to change in the fear of God. Now that may blow your socks off. And I hope it did. I have basked in the love of God most of my life. Yet, when I started to fear Him, I found a new power to obey. Its like nothing I have every experience before. Love is a wonderful thing. But sometimes we need a kick in the pants to wake up and get things done. This is were the fear came in for me.

I have fed my flesh with the tastiest of foods most of my life with little regard towards health. After losing my wife 4 years ago, I have drank a whole lot of alcohol.

The week before changing my ways, I had bought a case of my favorite beer at COSCOs. I drank all 24 bottles in less than a week. When that ran out, I devoured 2 bottles of wine in a day. Recently, the time came to turn from these ways to avoid the reaper a while longer. I was walking around the park at the time. During this time I started to ask Him, what He wanted me to do regarding my health. The word or impression I received was to get off alcohol and coffee. In that walk I was confronted with this needed change. I decided to walk away from alcohol and coffee immediately. I did. I have found that when a higher power shows you what to do, He expects you to obey immediately. If you do, then he will greatly help you. However, if you delay and continue to feed your flesh, then it becomes much more difficult. I remember saying to the Heavenly Father, that "I would stop all alcohol and coffee because I feared Him." I immediately dried out on alcohol and coffee 2 days later. Surprisingly, it was not that difficult.

A lot of times after one has a spiritual victory he or she starts to compare themselves with others. This is a big trap. This is the flesh trying to get back on board. I refused to do this looking to the prize of abundant life and excellent health. I knew that I needed to make a lot more changes to stay alive for a while longer and to achieve the vibrant health I wanted. Certainly making the change of cleaning up what I drank did help towards health. But when you are on the edge of death, it may take a lot more than one or two changes to get far away from that edge. Several weeks after stopping the alcohol and coffee, I was still having a lot of chest pains. I still was not out of hot water to stay alive.

Again I asked the higher power, what I needed to do? Next, He impressed me that I needed to get off of all animal products. So I have. I am now walking in this and the chest pains are way down and the weight is starting to melt off. Before going off meat, I was having great difficulty walking 10 miles a week. I had decided to stop walking because of the pain in my feet. However, after a week of being off meat, I was able to double my weekly mileage to 20 miles with a whole lot less pain. That is where I am now.

I am also searching the Web to find good health information. I was asking His help to know what health sources to trust. This is when I found hippocratesinst.org. I am now reading the magazine articles and listening to the 6 audios found on the site. I had absorbed a lot of new ideas and information in a week after finding this site. Then, last night I heard Brian Clement say that 25% of his health program was fasting once a week. Upon hearing this, I immediately knew that this was the next thing I needed to start on. This weekend I will start weekly fasting.

This has been my short but certain-to-continue faith walk towards staying alive and achieving vibrant, abundant life. We are all our own person. Each person will not be led the same way. They will be led by the higher power according to what is best for their person. The higher power will make sure of that if one is willing to follow.

I am not deceived to believe that one or two changes alone can delay the reaper. I know I have a lot further to go. I will go the distance. Actually, I don't have much choice at this juncture. I will continue to make changes until that still quiet voice tells me that there is no need for further changes.

Hope, this short article on faith can help you along the way a little.