Your Body God’s Temple

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of teaching a class entitled “Your Body God’s Temple”.  While preparing for my teaching, I came across a thought provoking quote from a book called Temple Maintenance:

“Since the Bible gives assurance that God knows your frame (He made it), He knows how much weight your body should carry to function best. When you think about it, the Lord was very specific about the dimensions of both the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple of Solomon. Your body is a temple, too. He has your perfect size in mind”(p. 9).

The world tells us what we should look like and many times that goal is unattainable for us. Personally, I will never be the 5 foot 8 model with thin legs walking down the runway. My body is 5 foot 4 at best (on my tall days 🙂 and my base is much more muscular than thin. God made me to be athletic so this build often is quite useful to me in my line of work.  How crazy it would be for me to try and reach an emaciated state that would rob my body of the muscle and size that I am made to be.

Nevertheless, if you know my story, you will know that was my goal for a couple of years of life. I fell victim to finding power and strength in reaching a certain size and weight. The results were not power and strength but compromise, a lack of connectedness to myself and to others, as well as an unhealthy view of food and of myself.  It has taken a lot of work for me to see my body as the temple, healing work done with the Lord.  I can honestly say it has been some of the hardest work and most productive work I have done.  The fruit of that work is that I am being set free — free to be all that God created me and called me to be!

How has God designed your body? Are you working with Him and His plan on how to get to that place of health or are you striving to be something you weren’t made to be? Often when we find that we are stuck or moving in the wrong direction it is because we have lost sight of the true goal of health.

I would love for each of us to take a little time this week to ask your maker how He made your frame, what His picture of health is for your life and the steps to get there. I believe the purpose and plan for each of us is freedom and Optimal Health.