Many of us spend most of our lives taking care of other people. We have been taught that we are supposed to take care of our children, our friends, our spouse, and our parents. We put so much energy into taking care of all the people in our lives that we often do not take care of ourselves. The fact is we are not any good to anyone unless we take care of ourselves. There has been a fundamental shift in our world lately based on taking care of our bodies. We are obsessed with exercise, eating healthy foods, and not drinking or smoking. We cannot turn the television or radio on without hearing someone telling us how to take care of our bodies. This is very important, but we also have to take care of our spirit.

We can never take care of anyone or do God’s work with a weak or sick spirit. It is often easy for us to know what we have to do to take care of our bodies. When we do we can see and feel the results. Taking care of our spirit will get us similar results. We will look and feel differently. Just like exercise, taking care of our spirit takes time. It is something that we have to train ourselves to do. It will make us sore, and we will get frustrated that things are not changing quickly enough, but in time we will notice a change. We have often heard that “Pain is gain.” This concept can also be applied to our spirit. You see when we go through a painful time in our lives our spirit grows and becomes stronger if we face the pain correctly. Having a strong spirit is something we have to train for. We would never run a race without training first. Why, then, would we go through the race of this life without training our spirit first?

There are many ways to train our spirit, and God is the master trainer. We can train our spirit by having positive thoughts; we can train our spirit by praying and talking to God. We can train our spirit by reading the Bible and other books that are positive and uplifting. We can train our spirit by watching the right kind of shows on television or listening to uplifting programs on the radio. The best way to train our spirit is to surround ourselves with positive thoughts. We have to think in a positive manner, and we have to project a positive attitude. In order to do this, we have to rely on God for everything. We have to allow Him to talk to us and guide our path. We have to turn to Him when things get difficult, and we have to give Him the control. When we do this, much of life can seem a little easier. Once we have trained our spirit and we are in good shape once again, then we can be a service to the people in our lives. Once we have found peace within ourselves, we can help others find peace. Once we have discovered the hope that God wants for all of us, we can direct others to the hope that we have discovered.

While it is very important that we help other people and it will help us in the process, we have to be in shape to do the best job we can. So, take time for yourself and include God in that time. Find time to be still and communicate with God. Allow the pain and strife that we will encounter in this life to strengthen you, not define or defeat you. Lean on God and let Him train your spirit. He is the perfect coach and trainer. Just like exercise, it is something that we will have to make a daily part of our lives, and it is something we have to do everyday, but it will make us feel so much better that we will not want to go a day without it. When we take the time to take care of ourselves and attend to the wellbeing of our spirit we will have peace, and PEACE MATTERS.

~Dan~