Your body is more spiritual than you might think. It's hard to talk to others about the peace of God when your own body is wracked with anxiety. Or to consider your body as the "temple of the Holy Spirit" if you regard eating, exercise, or sleep as inherently unspiritual activities. If you truly believe God made your body, it requires a level of care on your part to take care of it.
Justin Whitmel Earley—bestselling author of Habits of the Household—is intimately familiar with the consequences of ignoring one's body. As a young lawyer, he fell into a period of anxiety and insomnia that nearly ruined his life. In his journey back to mental and spiritual health, he realized the healthy and unhealthy habits shaping his life weren't physical or spiritual but were physical and spiritual.
The Body Teaches the Soul is a practical guide on what the Bible says should be the union of body and spirit in our overall health. In this study, Justin shares personal stories, fascinating research, and biblical wisdom to reveal ten simple habits that will improve your health and deepen your relationship with God. You will especially learn how to:
- Connect deeply and positively with your body as the image of God while avoiding the mistakes of ignoring or idolizing the body.
- Explore how daily patterns of healthy eating can be as spiritual as fasting and how rhythms of feasting can become guilt-free celebrations of the world God made.
- Recover your mental health through upper-brain spiritual truths that work together with lower-brain physical practices to reshape thought patterns.
- Develop a sleep routine that honors your body's need for rest and your soul's need for sabbath.
- Discover how to lament sickness and injury while still praying with hope for the miracle of healing.
- Learn how exercise can create a humble lifestyle of loving others with your body instead of becoming a vain search for body image.
The Body Teaches the Soul is your guide to rediscovering the extraordinary gift of the body and the spiritual life that flows from it. It will help you reconnect with your whole self and repattern your life in the image of the God who made you and loves you as you are—body and soul.
SESSION OUTLINE
Session 1: Breathing and Mental Health
Session 2: Spiritual Rhythms for Eating
Session 3: Embracing the Gift of Rest
Session 4: The Spiritual Discipline of Exercise
Session 5: Embodied Worship in a Technological World
Session 6: The Resurrection Life
Designed for use with The Body Teaches the Soul Bible Study Guide plus Streaming Video, sold separately.
