Spiritual Life and Physical Health

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In 1998, I suffered from lumber radiculopathy. This is a low back and leg pain, caused by compression of the roots of the spinal nerves in the hip region of the spine. I could not easily sit or stand because of acute pain. In fact, it was such that I wrongly prayed to God to make it impossible for me to need the toilet because of the debilitating pain around my hip and legs.

Thank God that, through a surgeon at the Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, I was taken to the facility. After the X-rays and diagnostic procedures, some drugs were prescribed for me. But the medical director himself  told me that I would be a regular guest of the hospital and might require surgery, if it progressed. He even reminded me of the similar case of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, our former head of state, who had the surgery in Germany.

This opinion of the medical doctor had a great impact on me and I was having all sorts of negative ideas about the future of my health. However, God sent one particular pastor to visit me while on my recommended orthopaedic mattress. I showed him the X-rays to justify the doctor’s opinion. But he said something that totally changed my life. He convinced me to reject the doctor’s opinion, stop focusing on the X-rays and instead have faith in God’s promise of healing. “Are you not a child of God?” he asked me.

Instantly, my faith escalated and I cut the X-ray  films in pieces with my pair of scissors.  Thereafter, I spent time praying, reading the Bible and meditating  on the Scriptures in the areas of healing. A few weeks after, the pains disappeared completely. Apart from that particular visit, I have never been to Igbobi Hospital again, except to visit patients. The doctors do not have the explanation for how my hip bones and nerves were restored. It was a divine healing.

Divine healing is bread meant for God’s children. In Matthew 15:26 (AMP), Jesus answered a Canaanite woman, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” People must repent of their sins and seek God’s forgiveness to enjoy this bread. Exodus 23:25 (AMP) says, “You shall serve the Lord your God; He shall bless your bread and water, and I will take sickness from your from your midst.” Here, the conditions for healing include obeying, serving, worshipping and pleasing God. He does not want His people to be suffering from sicknesses.

Proverbs 18:14 (NKJV) says, “The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit? There is no doubt that praying and meditating on the Scriptures can improve your health. You have to think positively and not negatively to recover from sickness. Positive beliefs, comfort, and strength gained from religion, meditation, and prayer can contribute to general wellbeing.

Spiritual practices can help build strength and alleviate the effects of depression or other mental illness, which in turn, affects physical wellbeing. Dealing with a chronic illness, pain, or disability is stressful and often leads to depression.

If you want to be mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically healthy don’t give place to jealousy or it will consume you. Proverbs 14:30 (NLT) says, “A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones”.  The most miserable people are filled with jealousy. Thinking and being jealous of what other people have which you do not have takes away your joy and leads to resentment.

James 3:6 (KJV) says, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” The word of God says envy is like cancer, a terrible disease.  The body, mind, and spirit are connected. The health of any one of these elements  affects  the others.

Proverbs 17: 22 says, “A joyful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.  Neuroscientists have indicated that a part of the brain responds to prayer and meditation by helping to reduce stress, enhance memory, and increase our capacity for compassion. It helps to ward off age-related brain deterioration.

Prayer and reading of Scriptures also deactivates the area of the brain associated with anger, anxiety, depression and pessimism. We are designed physically and mentally to interact with God through prayer, reading and meditating on God’s word. This will assure us of physical health.