“It is true that all men want health; but it is certainly not true that all men want the same medicine.” — G.K. Chesterton, Irish Impressions
One man's medicine is another man's poison and one person's cup of cold water is another person's water boarding.
Health is not a mathematical equation even though it is a balancing act. That said, each person's balance may be a bit different. You cannot say, for example, that healthy people are 5' 10' You cannot even say that people who are 5'10" should weigh 170 lbs. Different people and different body types wear that weight differently. Obesity is not necessarily a fixed number as much as it is a number of observations combined.
One man's sobriety may be another man's drunkenness. What takes the edge off for one may make the other edgy.
Proverbs 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:
but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
Gratitude is the best medicine. A contented soul is a good serum. This is the good elixir God gives to all His saints. The Gospel of Christ is the balm of Gilead for everyone to whom it is applied. It is a salve that staves off the sting of every wound that sin can cause.
1 Timothy 5:23
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
The wine of God is better for you than the bottled water of man, even if it is harvested from glaciers.
Jeremiah 8:22
Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
A bruised needs more than a band-aid and a sick soul cannot be satisfied by anything less than salvation. Why do you prefer to wallow in your wounds when the mending of God is so close at hand?
"In the bathroom two water tumblers were sealed in cellophane sacks with the words: 'These glasses are sterilized for your protection.' Across the toilet seat a strip of paper bore the message: 'This seat has been sterilized with ultraviolet light for your protection.' Everyone was protecting me and it was horrible. I tore the glasses from their covers. I violated the toilet-seat seal with my foot... I began to formulate a new law describing the relationship of protection to despondency. A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ." — John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley In Search of America
A virus is not as dangerous as a victim-mentality. Holding on to your life for dear life is the best way to see it slip right through your fingers. Only sick people spend their time thinking about their health. A healthy person makes wise decisions and wants to be healthy, but this usually manifests itself in spending their time not having to think much about their health. The tighter you clutch the sands in the hourglass of time, the faster they fall to the ground.
"It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, 'Slow down. You're not as young as you once were.' And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it's such a sweet trap... Who doesn't like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child... I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby... And in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity. If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living. I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means she likes men, not elderly babies." — John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley In Search of America
If you want to live, you must lay your life down. Resurrection power is the only cure for entropy. You are going to fall one way or another, but if you fall on Christ you will be raised back up.
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