As a painter/decorator, my day to day working life can get quite physical, enough for me to need every part of my body to be working as it should if I am to do a quality job properly and up to speed. In just a few months I’ll be 40 years old, and I’m pretty much discovering recently that even though for the most part I’ve been fit to work up until now for my whole working life, that my body won’t always do what I will want it to do in the future. I’m learning that with age comes aches, pains and slowness, when life actually wants me to change up a gear rather than wind down. Granted, I don’t really do much in the way of exercise or stretching these days, nor do I have much interest in playing any kind of sports anymore, so I’m sure I’m not giving my body the best chance to avoid or overcome any physical setbacks when they come, for I don’t train myself up in that way. And, I know I should, of course. But in fact, that is all besides the main point that I want to make to you with this blog.

In many different ways, I marvel at those dedicated people who spend hours of their day physically training. They usually have impressively beautiful bodies for other people to gawp at and admire the fruits of their hard work at the gym, the oglers wishing they themselves had a similar kind of dedication to their own temple. It is actually a cultural desire (and a pipe dream to some) instilled deep within us to be so fit in the body, maintaining that youthful vigour and beauty, and exuding health and prosperity simply by the way one looks on the outside. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m well aware that we each judge each other from the ways our bodies look, maybe with an animalistic eye for instinctively choosing a worthy spouse who can potentially genetically produce healthy offspring, and maybe because culture has dictated to us what is ‘beautiful’ from a young age through film and media, and we now want to imitate that cultural expectation so that others can admire US for possessing such a beauty, in either ourselves or because of our partner. In other words, like it or not, I’m very aware that physical appearance matters. There are also deeper reasons why someone would spend a lot of money and even more time pumping iron and running a treadmill; for example, there are a lot of positive results from working out and being fit (other than bodily strength), one of them being that one tends to be happier and has generally much better mental health than a couch potato; another positive being that one can eat virtually anything they please without feeling guilty, for the body will burn up the excess sugar or fat in the next training session, without any exterior detection.

Last Christmas (December 2017), I caught a vomiting and diarrhoea bug from my nephew that completely floored me. I was in bed for three whole days, unable to do anything but vomit, excrete and sleep (a lot). A few days prior, I had been as fit as a fiddle, working hard and rejoicing in my health, even praising the Lord for it! How quickly things changed, as I couldn’t remember the last time I was so completely incapacitated and unable to function as a normal human being. Even drinking water was difficult, and came with dire consequences. For anyone who has been this ill, or ever lost the use of a limb, or been very sore somewhere that really matters in terms of every day living, you’ll sympathise along with me that these times of severe illness, whilst thankfully (for most people) being extraordinary and seldom, are actually very humbling, and in fact have a great spiritual impact for any deep thinker.

Yes, truly humbling, for as I lay there completely unable to do anything but breathe and groan, I remembered that my earthly life is just a flash in the pan, and is as transient as smoke in the wind. I remembered that I’m only made of dust, and one day (coming soon) my present body will return back to dust, forever. I realised how dependant I am on everything working as it should in order for me to do what is in fact expected of me, namely to work hard in order to be able to afford to continue living in this very expensive country that I love so much, and to carry out all my responsibilities as an adult living in the modern world. Like a rat on a treadmill, I realised how one can think that one is going somewhere, when in fact one makes very little progress or impact, especially when considering how small each of us really are in the grand scheme of things. In a sort of humiliation that spited my pride of life, the Lord once again deeply revealed to me how dependant I am on Him for everything; not just my fragile health, but totally reliant for my very next breath, even the very next heartbeat; all of it so easy to take for granted, all too easy to forget to even thank Him or give Him glory for it all, especially when we are in the midst of our fullness of life and the plumpness of health.

Sickness is never pleasant; anyone who has children surely loathes the earaches, the vomiting sessions, the genuine agony they may witness from some ailment or another in their helpless dependant. It’s all too easy to shake a fist at the sky and curse God when it happens, because it’s simply SO painful, SO unpleasant, and especially in poorly children, it just seems to be so unjust. Yet, sicknesses and infirmities teach us from a young age lots of spiritual lessons, and anyone who explores them will always end up giving the Lord glory for the tests our earthly lives dish out in this way, in spite of how our rebellious flesh rather wants us to respond. Of course, the biblical reason we have sicknesses at all is because of the innate human love for darkness, and our collectively continuous indulgence in sin. Indirectly, even innocent children are slaves to the fallen physical realm, with its brokenness producing anything from viruses and dangerous mutations of bacteria, to skin conditions and disease carrying animals. The earth is now plagued because mankind first disobeyed, and even continues (for the most part) to disobey the Lord, disregarding the cross and doing whatever they want to do, even when they know the Lord hates it. The wages of sin is death, and death takes on many guises. This should in fact cause us to fear the Lord, for He is no respecter of persons, and any sinner is susceptible to being exposed by and to death. Anyone’s health is always in God’s hands, and even in great infirmity, He still has the power to heal if He wants to. Always. The fact that He doesn’t heal a lot of the time in spite of our prayers tells us something of how far fallen we are from His grace, and should in fact cause us to seek Him all the deeper.

Something that amazes me is that people will spend a lot of time worrying what their body looks like, making sure they eat organic and getting the best bottled water to match their strict diet unto the strongest, healthiest body, but that they mostly take so little concern for what happens after earthly death. We are told in the scriptures that everyone gets new, incorruptible bodies upon the resurrection of the dead and the day of Judgement, whether they are a wheat or tare, sheep or goat. Those heavenly bodies are designed to be everlasting, fit for eternity. Sin cannot touch that type of body any longer; but unless the soul inside that new body is redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, those bodies will instead be existing everlastingly in a lake of fire and brimstone, which was only designed for evil spirits, not resurrected humans. How ironic then that many will care so duly for their earthly body, whilst at the same time neglecting what is most important, their spiritual health, the prospect of receiving their new body and their standing with the Lord Jesus Christ.

In my frailty when I have been very ill in the past, I was always disturbed and put out by this short period of pain and unpleasant feelings, my body suffering temporarily whilst I overcame the sickness with time, medication and prayer. But in those eternal days to come, time is virtually inconsequential. It is everlasting, unending, forever. One may feel down here on earth when one part of their body is not working right, and if there are multiple problems at the same time, one may well feel VERY sorry for oneself. But people forget (or simply do not know) that as well as being a curse, death is very much a blessing to us, for we can finally cast off this body of sin and get brand new, transcended heavenly ones that are fit to meet our holy Maker! Yet for the unregenerate sinner who goes into the wrong side of eternity, this new body will be the greatest of all curses, for it will never be able to die, and the suffering will never end. There will be nothing one can do about it, either. There will be no prayer, no medication, no healthy diet, no time to heal. Just the eternally burning regret of one’s neglect of the Christ and the trampling of His precious blood, like an unholy thing. They will be like their master, the devil, in this way.

Friends, I want to think better for both you and myself in this regard. On the right side of eternity, we are promised no more pain, suffering or tears. The new body will be the greatest physical blessing the Lord ever gifted us! No longer groaning under the weight of the consequences of our sins, we will be totally free to worship, free to adore, free from earthly limitations. Peace will reign throughout, and the Lord’s glorious presence will reside both outside and in, permeating our souls to their deepest cores. Beauty will take on a whole new meaning, for it will be holy and pure. It will be real, not some make-up masking insecurities or bulging muscle worked on to impress. God has already revealed to us that He loves the beauty of modest, humble, contrite people, and therefore the meek will be honoured in that wonderful place, rather than the mighty and the pretty. Why then do we seek earthly rewards, especially as believers?

I’ve personally had tastes of what is to come when one is ‘in’ Christ. I can testify that He is worth dying for, for I have tasted the heavenly gift and know it to be VERY good. Of course, I look after my body here on earth as much as is necessary, but I do not and strive never to worship it, for I know where it is headed. Instead, I dream of the liberation of the new body, and marvel at the Lord’s plan of redemption. As I get older, I become more acutely aware that this current body will not last forever; hardly even a few short years more, in fact. I see others around me who are much older than me, struggling in ways that those under 50 know nothing yet of. Rather, I’m deciding to train my soul, not my body. That is what I invest my time into. The Lord Jesus Christ wants us to deny the sinful nature, and to grasp on to what is pure; He wants us to improve our spiritual health, as we walk the sanctification process and follow His light through the darkness, the Lamp along the gloomy path that has treacherous pitfalls on either side.

Let’s do our best to forsake this world, and rather strive for what is yet to come. Let sickness and infirmity be another spiritual lesson that takes us closer into the heart of God, rather than causing us to run from it. The devil would want us to blame and hate God for these temporary inconveniences of the earthly body, but with the right attitude, they are in fact enormous blessings, and we should all pray to see them as such.