Are you in the process of learning to live healthier? Maybe your New Year’s resolution was to eat better, exercise, or in some other way improve your physical health? Join us for the next few days as we offer scripture, insight, and encouragement to help on that journey.
Today’s scripture: Psalm 139:13-14 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (David Zier):
Have you ever thought about how awesome the human body is? How everything works together? How blood brings necessary oxygen to all of our organs and extremities? How about all of the coordinated muscles it takes to move your neck, a finger, a toe, or to walk, or how our brains are intricately wired to give us lots of memory capacity?
Paul Reber, professor of psychology at Northwestern University, reports that the human brain consists of about one billion neurons; each neuron forms 1,000 connections to other neurons. He postulates that if each neuron could only help store a single memory, we’d soon run out of space. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine (multiply!) so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s storage capacity to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). As a comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage. Well, when do we get started with those reruns on Nick-at-Nite!
We know that our physical bodies need exercise and nutrition to function well. So do our brains! Do you like crossword puzzles or learning new things? Those can keep the brain active! WebMD scientists have determined that foods like blueberries, nuts and seeds, salmon, whole grains, and avocados are good for healthy brain function. They refer to these as Smart Foods (no pun intended I am sure!) These are items that God has given us as part of creation. God created us, and gave us the things that we need to function well, and live healthy lives.
God formed our inward parts; meaning all of who we are. The physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional pieces of us work together as God knit us. Wonderful are these works! If God created us to be a wonderful work, each of one of us, how should we care for that wonderful work? We can make smarter choices about those smart foods, and care for ourselves in a way that shows God that we know we are wonderfully made!
Prayer for the day: God, help me make better choices, so I can better understand what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made!
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.