Optimal Spiritual Health
Optimal Spiritual Health is summum bonum when the physical body, emotions, and intellect are perfectly integrated, balanced, and anchored in the Almighty Sovereign God. God is the force that brings us together into an organized whole. As a result, not only is the health of the whole you enhanced but also the health of the whole universe.
The road to Optimal Spiritual Health is a long and winding one but on it you’ll discover unconditional love, unwavering faith, and unequivocal justice.
Unconditional Love begins with love for God, followed by love for self, and then love for others expressed in Luke 10:27: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself.” In essence, this means that our expression of love to others reflects how we express self-love. Attached to unconditional love is forgiveness. In fact, unconditional love and forgiveness are one in the same. And, how we forgive others is how we are forgiven: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matthew 6:12).”
Additionally, a familiar Bible passage: 1 Corinthians 13 paraphrased describes love: “Love suffers long and as long as love has to suffer, love is kind. Love is not boastful, envious, or proud. Love believes the best in all. Love never fails.”
When we love ourselves unconditionally, we love ourselves just as we are. This includes unconditional love of my skin color, hair texture, body size, and my physical, emotional, and intellectual condition. Unconditional love is the starting point for being better able to care for our body, mind, and spirit.
Unwavering Faith–Life is replete with uncertainties, disappointments, unexpected and expected losses, illnesses some of which are life threatening—a host of burdens and surprises. Unwavering Faith is the invisible guide that moves us toward Optimal Spiritual Health in the midst of setbacks.
For example, suppose you commit to do everything right. You eat healthy organic foods, exercise 30 to 45 minutes 4 to 5 days a week, get the proper rest and sleep 8 hours a night. You make annual visits to the doctor and regularly receive a clean bill of health. You spend time in prayer and meditation every day, attend church regularly and tithe. Your work ethic is impeccable. And, you volunteer at a homeless shelter two times a month. In spite of this, at age 50, you have a heart attack, or lose your job, or have a child who is diagnosed with cancer or one arrested for substance abuse OR perhaps more than one of these disrupts your perfect life. Without an abiding faith, circumstances could lead to situational stress resulting in a host of physical or emotional ailments.
Unwavering faith acknowledges that the only thing certain is uncertainty. Even more, with unwavering faith, you move to a higher level of understanding, a level where you don’t have to always understand. The situation could be too mind-boggling. Unwavering faith seeks wisdom from the Universe and then waits patiently to hear back. How long will it take? Eternity perhaps… Unwavering faith is independent of external circumstances, without conditions, merit, boundary, or time and is healing to the body, mind, and spirit.
Unequivocal Justice–Lastly, along life’s long and winding road are signs pointing toward unequivocal justice. For, it is a core value necessary to attain Optimal Spiritual Health. Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political society. That said, before we can have healthy interpersonal relationships and a stable political society, we must have a healthy relationship with our self.
Love and respect for self is tantamount to being generous to others’ freedom, autonomy, and dignity, fosters and protects human liberty for all members of society, with socio-economic inequalities requiring moral justification in terms of equal opportunity and beneficial results for all. http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwest/
Unequivocal justice is clearly mentioned multiple times in the Bible. Micah 6:8 says: “The LORD has told you what is good, and this is what God requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Isaiah 58: 6-12 explains the Micah passage: “To free those who are wrongly imprisoned, lighten the burden of those who work for you, let the oppressed go free, remove the chains that bind people, share your food with the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives that need your help.”
What happens when we live justly? “Then your light will break forth like the dawn (now you see more clearly); Your healing quickly appears (your health is more prosperous); your righteousness will go before you (your good name stands out); and the glory of the LORD is your rear guard (God has your back)” (Isaiah 58:8).
When you attain Optimal Spiritual Health, you are generous in giving unconditional love and forgiveness, walk by faith and not by sight, and stand for justice.
