Should I Ask God for Help Eating Right?
When you think about eating a healthy diet, or managing your diabetes, or shedding those extra pounds, using your superpower of faith to improve your health might never cross your mind. Often, we compartmentalize our faith and our goals for healthy living in separate boxes that don’t connect.
And if we’re not careful, we reserve faith for the more “spiritual” aspects of our lives. For example, choosing a spouse, answering a call to ministry, or making moral decisions. What we eat and how we feed our families feels so everyday that we rarely think to pray about it. After all, it’s just a meal, right? Wrong! In today’s society where many of us are eating in direct contradiction to our health, we need all the help we can get. And that includes our faith.
Why Would God Care What I Eat?
“Whether you eat therefore or drink, or if you do anything you shall do everything for the glory of God”
1 Corinthians 10:31
How we treat our bodies determines how we live out our purpose and complete our mission on earth. Lifestyle illnesses like heart disease and diabetes are robbing lives every day. If you’re weakened by your diet, or if your life is cut short, your friends and family have been deprived of you. God has been deprived of what you could have accomplished.
That’s why how we eat and what we decide to feed our families is perhaps one of the most important decisions we make. But it can be hard, and we all need help. So use your faith as your superpower to get healthy. It is through the activation of our faith in this area we are able to access God’s grace, guidance, and strength.
How Exactly Can I Access God’s Strength to Change My Health?
“Beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health physically just as your soul prospers spiritually.”
3 John 1:2
So, what does connecting your faith to your health journey look like? Here’s an ABC:
- Acknowledge that God wants you healthy and open to approaching your health from a new perspective. Specifically, you’ll need to see what you put on the end of your fork as a holy act.
- Believe on a soul level that your body is God’s temple. You choose not to defile it with toxic foods. Make sure that what you are eating is aligned with what you know God’s best to be. Toxic treatment to our bodies is harder when you see being healthy as a spiritual practice.
- Connect to your Superpower. Pray to God in a way that invites Him into your daily struggles, from being tempted by foods to lacking the motivation to exercise. Allow God into the fine details of your health journey. Meditate on the scriptures that talk about your health. We can help. Check out A Prayer for Your Health (#ad) 4-week devotional for inspiration.
How Can Your Superpower of Faith Make Healthy Living Easier?
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Inviting God into your health journey is a game-changer, because now you are drawing from God’s strength rather than your own. Seeing what we eat as a spiritual practice changes the dynamics around food and the control it has in our lives. You already know that faith is what helps us to get through the tough times. It gives us meaning and sheds light on the path that brings us to our best selves in God.
Think about a time when prayer and meditation brought you through a difficult time in your life. God can do the same when it comes to your health journey! The magic happens in these intimate conversations you have with God about your struggles with food or staying consistent. When we become more spiritually aware of our health practices, it results in changes in our behavior.
Now You Have a Superpower of Faith Over Your Health!
“Everything is permissible for me…but I will not be mastered by anything”
1 Corinthians 6:12
Giving God control over our health allows us to use our superpower of faith and relinquish things that are not working for us. When God enters that space of our lives, we are forced to look deeper into why we do the things we do concerning our health. What may start of as a simple prayer around the struggles we have with giving up toxic foods becomes a deeper revelation around how God can meet most of your inner needs. When God fills a void in your life that you never knew existed, the negative patterns around food resolve themselves.
Millions of failed diets, chronic health issues, weight gain—yet we are sitting on a superpower that we haven’t utilized. Faith. Most people of faith say faith is important to them, but when it comes to applying it our health, we leave faith off the table. The good news is that once you realize that your faith is your superpower you can bring faith into your health journey and to the kitchen table.
Faith Is Stronger Than a Fad Diet
When you tap into your faith to improve your health, you have a deeper purpose. Getting healthy because you have a purpose in God is life-changing! It is the sustainable “why” that people of faith miss tapping into. Juice fasts, New Year’s resolutions, and fad diets can’t be kept up because the “why” is not unshakeable. Tying your faith to your health gives you an unshakeable anchor to becoming and staying healthy long-term.
See your health from God’s perspective. Eating and living healthfully are acts of spiritual stewardship. It's the secret weapon embodied in your faith. Now diet can become a lifestyle rooted in divine guidance and understanding rather than issues of vanity, envy, or low self-esteem.
We all can agree that it is not easy staying consistent. Giving up certain unhealthy foods, exercising, or resetting your palate can be challenging. However, when you see these challenges through the lens of your faith, it removes the burden often attached with getting healthy. Now you have a renewed sense of dedication to making healthy your new normal.
Improve your health using the superpower of faith! Check out the 4-day Prayer for Your Health challenge or the 4-week Interactive Course.