
Happy New Year!!!!
(We still say that this many days into 2025, right? OK cool.)
In January, a lot of us are reexamine our relationships with our bodies – be it eating, working out, sleeping, or getting a handle on depression and anxiety (Seasonal Affect Disorder, anybody?) Yet a lot of us see no connection between all that physical stuff, and our walks with God.
A lot of us accidentally separate our bodies from our faith. Maybe we even see our bodies as a problem, a liability, an embarrassment. Maybe our culture, heavily influenced by dualism and Gnosticism, reinforced this perspective. Maybe the Christian teaching we received made it even worse.
But God sees our bodies as spiritually significant. He loves to connect with us right in our mundane, daily physical experiences! He sees our bodies as a sacred meeting place, a very good gift, a central way we can receive Him and convey Him.
If we see our bodies like God does, we’ll begin to meet Him there. We’ll escape Gnosticism. We’ll embrace holy embodiment.
We might even start to see our own bodies with the Lord’s compassion and humility and delight.
Over the next month I’ll be sharing five practical, anyone-can-do-it ideas for holy embodiment. These are easy, daily ways to invite God back into our bodies, and our bodies back into His Presence. And don’t miss my big news at the end!!
First, today’s practice for holy embodiment:
Tip # 1: Drink water (on purpose, gratefully, thinking as a steward)
…as our good brother Jon Batiste recommends, take a deep breath and drink water.
How can drinking water be holy?
- Drinking enough water honors God’s design for our bodies. If you took a swig this minute, every system in your body thanks you. God created us to need a LOT of water. Staying hydrated recognizes our design, and our limitations. Drink up. (This is especially essential if your kidneys and liver worked overtime during the holidays. Common Good holiday cocktail menu, I’m looking at you.)
- Drinking with thankfulness offers us a chance for gratitude and reminds us of our invitation into stewardship. As you chug, thank God for this gift. Clean water is a gift one out of four people around the world go without. We are called and created to be stewards of all God has made; consider what you might do to steward the water of your area well.
- Drinking mindfully, we remember that Christ is the Living Water. Ezekiel 47 imagines God as a flowing, swelling river that seeps into a dead desert until everything springs up green and alive! Christ resurrects the wiltiest of deserts. He, and only He, quenches our deepest thirst. Let drinking water become a time of praise and thanksgiving for God’s power
As we fill up those bottles – and our bodies – with water, may it become a small but significant moment of worship! Bottoms up!
…and my big news:
I signed with a literary agent right before Christmas!! YAY!!!
Essentially this means a) someone believes in my work enough to think she can sell it to a publisher and b) I can let a dedicated, trustworthy professional handle the behind-the-scenes work of getting published, while I focus on doing the writing I love!
What an answer to prayer.
How about you, how can I be praying for you this year? Where do you need the Living Water to bring growth, healing, life?
<3
Jeannie