Forget Not His Benefits

Imagine the physical effects of smoking a pack of cigarettes everyday for 40 years—pretty horrifying, right? Well, imagine that the absence of prayer, meditation, church fellowship, and the space for God to move on your behalf have that very same physical effect. The old saying goes “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” but can a prayer a day do the same? An article in Relevant Magazine (maybe you can tell by now that Relevant is my favorite faith based magazine) written by Rob Moll, award winning journalist and author of What Your Body Knows About God, breaks down these “5 Ways Your Faith Improves Your Health”.

1. Faith Encourages Healthy Behavior

2. Faith Reduces Stress

3. Community Improves Emotional Health

4. Helping Others Improves Life Satisfaction

5. Space for the Miraculous

The measurable health benefits of Faith, blood pressure, strength of the immune system, and the offset of the effects of mental illness are also mentioned but what I loved most about the article was the 5^th health benefit— Space for the Miraculous. Some will say that the health benefits of Faith are all in a person’s head, and I have to agree. The article references The Placebo Affect, which is a person’s response to a treatment that seems to be real but isn’t.  Now, my belief in this theory isn’t the same as a skeptic’s but it is based on the mantra of my Pastor, Bishop J. Drew Sheard, “If you can’t see it before you see it you never will see it.” That motto has always activated my imagination to believe for something that wasn’t necessarily true yet, and that’s all faith is, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).  So maybe it is the Placebo Effect but the bottom line is, Faith can help improve a person’s health.

 “…If we believe that God's authority stretches to the physical as well as the spiritual, then we can accept that He can manifest that authority in our physical health as well as our spiritual health.”

Take a look at The Surprising Links Between Faith and Health here.

-Ayana