Our Faith and our Health
Then He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. (Matthew 10:1).
Our tour of the Gospels and the revelation made about Jesus’s public ministry gives a concrete picture of Jesus’s core involvement in restoring and healing the sick and helping the people of His time to battle the problem of illness and unhealthy conditions of the deprived and suffering humans. He not only faced the problem of illness, disease and human deprivations with His supernatural healing interventions, He commissioned the Apostles to make that an integral aspect of their Evangelical mission and assignments.
The desire to be well, healthy and overcome illness and diseases has been the core aspiration of humankind and this is always at the heart of human struggles in all cultures and in all settings. Apart from the desire to overcome the problem of hunger, no desire can equal in terms of importance that innermost desire of the human person to be healthy and to overcome afflictions of any form of disease and illness. Really, Health is wealth. We know quite well that being so wealthy and not having the good health of mind and body to enjoy that wealth ends in frustration and misery. As much as people desire wealth and riches, on the scale of preference, good health of mind and body comes first. The heart of the human person abhors sickness and unhealthy conditions of the mind and body. God, who created us out of true love and constantly desires our happiness, does not leave us alone in this innermost struggle against the problem of illness and disease but by His unrelenting and unfailing providence, helps us through various channels to see the paths that lead to true healing and healthy well-being. The various channels through which we receive healing and battle against diseases are gifts of God to us and they are well-ordered by God.
Our faith thus leads us to appreciating the positive channels to human healing and very supportive of medical breakthroughs in all cultures and civilizations, interpreting such breakthroughs and preventive and curative medical interventions (orthodox or unorthodox) as gifts of God to humanity in confronting the problem of disease and human afflictions/deprivations. Never will our faith- life push us to reject medical options that lead to human healing, wholeness and well-being as much as the sacred dignity of the human person is always respected in the process. The Christian faith and experience have been at the fore front of medical interventions and integral, humane, preventive, curative and rehabilitating medical methodologies and procedures in history. The healing of the human person is at the heart of Jesus’s ministry and invariably the mission of the Church, which exists as a continuation of Jesus’s salvific ministry. Thus, as much as the Church calls us to follow Christ even in our difficult states of life: battling with one form of ailment or the other, this must never be interpreted that we are never supposed to accept medical procedures and interventions that will help us to practically battle our ailments. God continues to heal us through the instrumentality of efficient medical personnel’s and in accepting the medical information that can help us make healthy choices and become healthy, we are invariably listening to God who continues to open us to the truth of the various paths that will lead to our happiness in this world and in the world to come.
It would be an anti-faith perspective to reject medical options that can lead to our well-being and healing from illness under the guise that is one is religiously inclined and that when one is sick, the religiously inclined should only pray directly to God for healing. Yes, God has power to bring us to healing via the spiritual way but if He decides to bring us to healing through various channels of medical interventions, it is not in our place to reject His loving plans in using medical procedures to bring us healing. It is so painful that some have ignorantly succumbed to untimely death because they thought that medical procedures can never have any link with religious consciousness.
God keeps offering us the healing through various approaches to human health, restoration and well-being. We are not facing the battle against any form of illness alone. God is always with us and by his providence, He supports us in the battle and constantly guides us to discover patterns of human healing and restoration. Christ’s healing ministry is at the heart of His salvific mission. By Christ’s wounds, we are healed. Let us continue to make healthy choices as our expression of the acceptance of the healing ministry of Christ and His bride, the Church.
It is very imperative to ensure Good Health by healthy choices: We must eat rightly. Prioritize good diet over convenient unhealthy diet. We are what we eat. Get the body to move frequently. One should not ignore healthy physical exercise. One must not ignore continuous hydration. It is healthy to cultivate a positive and cheerful attitude to life. One must value cleanliness. ‘’Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Let us always have a deep connection with Mother Nature and live and relate with the environment in a healthy manner. A healthy environment is key to our healthy living. It is profitable to breathe deeply and purge oneself of toxic ideas, emotions, experiences and destructive habits. There should be a quality attention given to quality rest and avoidance of stressful experiences. It is profitable to keep the struggle against harmful habits alive and ensure daily victory over such habits. Our faith option should help us to keep a positive mindset, practicing gratitude and taking into practices that will make us happy and healthy. Let us keep the flame of faith alive in prayers and devotions. We must always listen to and adhere to the guidance and wisdom of medical personnel’s who work for well-being and healing.