Mind, Body & Soul

"God is our life and our health. We receive by His grace everything we need to sustain us, renew us, and restore us." -- Roy Lessin

Lately, I have been planning and/or taking intentional steps to better myself: mind, body and soul.  For example, I love to read.  I want to read more.  I know that my first priority of all reading should be that of the Bible.  I feel the strong desire to learn more from God's Word and, through that knowledge, grow closer to God in my daily walk and, as a natural extension, better be able to show His love to others in my life.  So I am intentionally making an effort to read the Bible everyday.  That's not to say I am perfect and I don't miss a day here or there.  I am in a women's bible study where we are supposed to read through the whole Bible by the end of the study and that really has kept me on track with assignments everyday.  We are on a break for the holidays now, though, so I have really had to be disciplined to keep up with it on my own.    

I got this journal to write notes as I take this journey and to use as a prayer journal so I can look back and see what God has done with those prayers (since I do have a bad memory).  It's a pretty cool journal actually because it really does deal with the body, soul, and spirit.  Each page has places to check off your daily servings of food and track your exercise, as well as write notes about what you learned and things you prayed.  It also provides inspirational scripture and quotes daily.  In fact, the quote I posted above is from today's page (funny how it fits in perfectly with what I've been dealing with lately).  

However, I want to read books outside of the Bible as well.  This is where it gets tough.  I have a limited amount of time in the day in which to do anything on my own, as much as just read.  I have many things, including cleaning, blogging, and making Christmas presents lately, that take up that time.  So it really is difficult for me to have the time to do all those things and read the Bible (in a non-rushed, prayerful manner where I can actually learn from it) and then read other books.  But I have been trying at least.  

Normally, I'd read fiction, but recently I've been on a non-fiction kick.  I just finished reading "5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Sons," by Vicki Courtney.  The title says it all.  It is basically about how to raise your son to be a godly man and the common stumbling blocks and pitfalls this world presents to that goal.  It was a little repetitive at times, but overall it gave some good advice (much of which is for kids older than Graham, but some of which I may be able to start implementing in these upcoming toddler years).      

Right now, I am reading a book called "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism," by Timothy Keller.  I am not far into it yet for the reasons I gave above, but so far it is pretty good.  The beginning of the book delves into the top issues that skeptics have with Christianity and the end of the book is, as the title of the book suggests, supposed to give the top reasons for God/Christianity.  I may give a more in depth review of this book in a later post if I can get through it before I have to return it to the library.   

I know I mentioned bettering my body above but I won't get into that in detail in this blog post or it'd be way too long.  In short, my goal is to continue to strive towards healthier eating habits and regular exercise.  This is an area where, if I'm being perfectly honest, I've done more planning than executing in recent months... one where I intend to start turning those plans into action.  More to come on that in future posts. 

Until next time, 

Lyndsey