Body and Mind

             Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans12:1-2)

            I’ve been thinking about prayer quite a bit. One of the things I’ve begun to do is to organize my prayer time. I begin with big categories: Church, Family, Community, Authorities, Enemies, and Myself. I’m working on subcategories, but the only one I’ve succeeded with is “Myself.” I use Dallas Willard’s model of a person: Heart/Spirit/Will, Mind/Thought/Emotions, Body, Relationships, and Soul. After that, I add things I have given to God: my house, garden, dog, truck, job, writing, etc.

I’m also starting to try to attach Scripture to these areas of prayer. Today’s passage addresses two: our bodies and our minds. For most of us, these are probably the toughest. We like to think we own our bodies – and in a sense, we do. But that sense doesn’t mean we can make up whatever rules we want. Our bodies were designed to function a certain way and when we violate that, our bodies suffer. Food is a huge area of difficulty for me. I know others who harm themselves with a variety of chemicals (e.g. cigarettes & alcohol.) Some folks damage their bodies in other ways, like not getting enough sleep, or not drinking enough water.

But if we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, we should work toward that sacrifice being acceptable. If you read about sacrifices in the Law, they weren’t allowed to be weak, sickly, or damaged. I have a LOT of work to do.

Our minds aren’t much better. I’ve read that back in the 1800s,  people would attend lectures, speeches, and debate that could last several hours, then go home and discuss  what was said. People used to memorize long stories and multiple books of the Bible. That might be a case of “When I was in school, I walked three miles through three feet of snow to get there.” But, according to one researcher, our attention span is now a little over 8 seconds, and I sometimes think mine is shorter than that. That doesn’t mean we can’t binge watch entertainment for12 hours, but it explains why I crochet or do plastic canvas or take notes while I’m supposed to be listening intently. Those things keep my mind focused enough to not wander too far afield. The distraction may be, “Squirrel!” or it might be a tangent like, “Hm, what’s the etymology of that word and where’s the verse that _____, oh, and who said something about-where’s that quote?” Of course, the distraction might be a knot in the yard, or a crochet hook hitting the floor for the second or third time.

Renewing our minds, our thoughts and our feelings, like any discipline, takes work. We’re back to the issue of developing good habits, and therefore good characters. I believe the Bible is the best resource for this, but whatever you decide to use to pattern your thinking  and  feelings, the more objective and connected to reality it is, the better. It does no one any good to insist that the universe be the way we want  it to.