Christians are often reminded to treat their bodies as the temple of God. However, the culture we live in today is obsessed with body image.
But for Christians, it is just as important, if not more so, to be spiritually healthy.
As college students, we often struggle with keeping the necessary balance needed for our health.
Between homework, clas-ses, projects, work and even sports, we tend to overbook ourselves, causing our spiritual health and wellness to be neglected.
Our education is put on the forefront of our lives, as most often it will determine the success we have in life.
Overbooking ourselves may seem necessary to accomplish all that is needed to be successful in school.
But overbooking our lives most often leads to unhealthy outcomes and causes students to experience more stress in life.
Work production and quality of our efforts often suffer as a result of overbooking.
In an effort to stay stress-free and healthy, we need to learn to prioritize: Give what is most important the needed amount of time before adding more commitments to our workloads.
As a full-time student with three jobs, and several extra-curricular activities, I am prone to overbooking myself, and I have felt the effects of this.
Not only have I done poorly on countless assignments, projects and tests, I have also suffered through many breakdowns and lost out on important opportunities because of my inability to say “no.”
As a part of my New Year’s resolution, I prioritized all of my commitments, and have put a special emphasis on spiritual health, particularly by having my daily quiet time and observing the Sabbath.
One of the most important duties as Christians is the observance of the Sabbath.
We are told throughout the Bible that we must observe a day of rest, the Sabbath, because it is holy. It was the day that the Lord rested after he created everything.
If we do not observe the Sabbath, we are not only running our bodies down, but we are also not abiding by God’s commands.
Being spiritually healthy also helps our overall well-being. If our relationship with God is strong and consistently being worked on to be even stronger, our health — mentally, physically and emotionally — will become stronger.
Spirituality is often linked to our physical well-being. So if we are physically healthy, we often feel healthier altogether.
Our spiritual health is something that needs to be viewed as an important facet of our lives.
Without consistent quiet time, and a day or at least several hours of rest each week, we will feel the tolls of the weakening of spirituality in all areas of our lives as Christians.
