“Our health and wellness don’t move from the outside in, but from the inside out.”- Judah Smith
As Judah Smith continues Chapter 1 of How’s Your Soul?, he notes that our physical bodies, bank accounts, vehicles, and families get regular attention. However, we rarely, if ever, focus on our souls. Routine soul checkups?- almost nonexistent.
Yet, Pastor Smith writes, deep inside we’re looking for things to go well with our souls:
“We have an innate, intuitive sense that we were designed to be at peace both inside and out. Somehow we sense that happiness, satisfaction, joy, rest, and love are supposed to be the natural state of the human race.”
But reality often lags behind that ideal. Pain surrounds our inner chaos. Inside we feel out of alignment. We’re unsure how to set ourselves straight.
As a result, when we find problems on the inside, our typical fix consists of redoubling our efforts on the outside. Thinking that internal happiness comes from external success, we throw ourselves into the chase. Judah describes two common outcomes to this approach.
- Try as hard as possible to fix specific circumstances messing with your happiness. Eventually you discover the futility of this attempt. So you throw in the towel, resigned to a reality you’d rather avoid. Next, you devise ways to escape. As Pastor Smith observes, “you live for moments of happiness that punctuate an otherwise frustrating existence.”
- Actually achieve your goals. Judah emphasizes that this outcome potentially is worse than the first. Because you get what you always desired, only to discover success doesn’t make you feel any better. Now your only hope at achieving satisfaction has vaporized.
In conclusion, Judah stresses that God designed life for more than simply surviving. He encourages:
“This life . . . is meant to be amazing . . . because our souls have found their homes in God. Fulfillment comes from having a healthy soul.”
Today’s question: Does your health and wellness come from the outside or the inside out? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “All that is within me”