The Worth Of Knowing

Ten years ago my counselor looked at me gently and said, “Jen, anxiety is probably something you will wrestle with on and off for the rest of your life.”

Ten years ago I sat in my car on my way to work and realized that for me at that time swallowing anxiety medication was an act of submission and reliance on God. It was an admittance of my humanity and the brokenness of the human body.

Six or so years ago a dear Christian reached out, concerned about how I described my body as broken. 

Today I just want to suggest that there is nothing heroic about denying the decaying that is happening in each of our bodies. It’s a result of the fall. It’s submission to the narrative of Scripture.

The one thing worse than knowing that death is at work in your physical body is not knowing that death is at work in your physical body.

Or spiritual self.

It’s not pessimism. It’s not looking at the glass half empty. It’s not hypochondria.

It’s reality. Biblical reality that is evident in the bodies we walk around in everyday.

It feels a bit like Jesus telling the Jews they would have to eat his body and drink his blood to have eternal life. It probably felt repulsive and bewildering and yet that is often how we feel about God’s ways. He knows the idols we hold closely whether it’s laws and traditions or health and prosperity.

No wonder I receive protest when I say my body is broken. It pushes against our values even Christians find themselves clinging to.

There are at least two main sources of hope that I have found after admitting the decay in my own body:

1). I will one day receive a new perfect body. I think we all knew this answer was coming. We’ve all heard it to the point of it sounding trite. But the reality that God created humans with bodies and called them “very good” and promised us new perfect bodies AND inhabited a human body himself suggests that our bodies even now in their decaying state have value. Which leads to the second source of hope.

2). My body has value now even as it is in the process of decaying. I know it’s hard to hear that word “decaying” over and over again, but I haven’t found a better word to describe our reality. But God uses broken things. God uses decaying bodies to show his power. His power is shown in the overflowing  fruit of the Spirit in us even as we are not fully well. But his power is also shown in our humble submission to the outside help of doctors, medicine, healthy food, or friends bringing a meal when we’re too tired to make it.

Our agreement or disagreement with the Biblical narrative is shown by how we move and treat our bodies everyday. They are broken vessels to shine God’s glory. They are not our saviors. We care for them not because we want to become invincible or deny the decaying that is in us, but because we want to handle this vessel that carries God’s glory as well as we can for as long as God asks us.

God’s creation of the human body was very good. Humans’ sin resulted in death.

And yet this decaying body is not God’s plan B. 

There’s something good and glorious about this that we can’t fully wrap our heads around on this side of eternity.

But when we humbly submit to God’s narrative despite our lack of understanding we might begin to discover some of the beauty and goodness it holds.