Breaking Chains: Faith, Healing, and Stewarding the Body

For the past few months, I have found steady healing by learning what it means to steward my body in a way that honors Christ. This has not always been the case. For so long, I thought that the answer to healing the relationship I had with my body and food was to:

1. Radically accept the body God gave me and learn to love it because He created it and said it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31)

2. View all food as fuel and eat whatever I wanted when I wanted because that was honoring my body and its needs.

I was surrendering daily and living these statements out day after day, but I wasn’t finding healing. I was running in circles, repeating the same cycles, and going nowhere fast.

Through God’s grace, unconditional love, kindness, and mercy, He has slowly revealed that although these statements have truth in them, they omit the whole truth. My perspective was missing some notable realities about how God calls us to steward and treat our bodies.

That is where 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 comes in.

"Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body."

Through the truths of these words, I found a healing deeper than I thought was possible.

The first thing the Lord revealed to me is that the goal was no longer learning how to love my body but to learn how valuable and beautiful it truly is, not because it is mine but because it is His. 

The Lord gave me a new understanding that our bodies are of significant worth because they hold the greatest gift He has ever given us: God’s presence and power working in us by His gift of the Holy Spirit.

I began to find so much freedom in this newfound admiration and gratitude for my body, something I had previously had so much hate for.

Chain=broken.

Putting this perspective into action took time, discipline, wins, losses, and all of the in-between. But God’s faithfulness endures.

I now see my body as something that deserves respect, honor, love, and stewardship. Again, not because it is mine, but because it is His. 

I find myself asking these questions before consuming anything:

1. Is this honoring my body, that is, the temple of the Holy Spirit (AKA God’s dwelling place in me)? 

2. Is this going to nourish my body in a way that allows me to continue to honor God’s will for the next few hours/day?

3. Is this stewarding my body in a way that exemplifies my faith?

It seems simple, but I often need to remind myself that we are not perfect beings and that this life is not perfect, which means I will not always eat foods that answer these questions perfectly. 

Healing the relationship with myself and my body has been and will forever be a journey, but it is one that God has been and forever will be a part of, and in that, I have assurance, hope, and peace that surpasses understanding.

God Bless,

Kendall Olsen