Fruitful practice involves essential efforts aimed consistently at the proper goals/objectives.  These efforts must be in repeated movement towards a fruit-bearing goal as the same efforts aimed towards a wrong goal only bears bad fruit.  Similarly, poor effort directed even at a good goal will fall short in bearing the fruitfulness one’s desire in relation to the degree it is off target.  Practice must therefore be worked out with diligence and action.  One’s intended target for health must also align with the Designer’s principles.  Like links in a chain, one broken link can disrupt the whole process and fall short of whole person whole life health. 

                If you are going to put effort into doing something, the “something” should be worth doing with some actual purpose even if it is a simple one.  The fruits of a healthy life do not come by accident but require a variety of concerted factors being directed towards a common goal.  Consider an arrow moving through the air towards a bullseye.  The components of speed, angle over a given distance, weight, and shape all determine whether it hits its target.  A miscalculation or mistake in one of these can redirect the arrow away from its intent.  From a logical standpoint, our practice must include aim, action, and diligence.  These factors must then be targeted at a proper goal.  Accuracy at the wrong target can mean not only a miss but could hit an undesirable target.  We must know the right target if we are to hit it, otherwise, it is only God’s mercy that we do so despite ourselves.

                This correct target must be true to reality in the Creator’s design as a lack of conforming to reality will produce no actual reward.  Right knowledge of a target requires knowing it as God knows it, meaning accurate but not exhaustive knowledge of our goal.  Since God designed creation with rules of nature and laws of morality, attempting to violate or simply ignoring His rules and laws will not bear fruit that we actually enjoy.  Aiming at the wrong target of health due to wrong belief will not result in hitting the desired goal of a healthy life.        

                This aiming at the correct target then requires activity of body and spirit as it is truly never at rest.  While doing nothing is a choice, it is not real movement towards a target.  We should remain still only when needed to diligently search out what actions come next.  In those time, seeking God’s direction for how we should next act is still an action of the spirit.  At other times, we should be moving forward towards targets we have set.  Passivity which waits for the world, for others, or for God to bring fruit can be nothing more than an excuse. While we know that all good things must come from God (James 1:17), we also know that God normally works through secondary means to accomplish that good.  Those secondary means include the diligent actions we take to move towards a Godly goal we have chosen.

                Once we have the correct target in view and start moving towards it, we must add diligence to the correct aim in order to achieve our goals.  An arrow without the diligence of daily practice would give up in midair and fall short of its target whether short or long term.  Diligence in a healthier life means that we finish the trajectory until we land where we hoped.  If vitality in our 50’s is the goal, we cannot awaken each morning to junk food, and have hope to have the energy to keep up with our growing children or coming grandchildren.  Achieving a lasting healthy life of body, mind, spirit, and relationships requires diligence in setting a mindset each day that we will be stewards of our bodies.  We must diligently consider what goes into our bodies, what we do with our bodies, on what my spirit and mind meditate, on what I seek with my time and effort, as well as how we related to others and to God.

              The gaining of health requires a stewardship of the lives we have been given, aimed at the correct targets with action applied diligently.  We should aim to care for both the body and the spirit in accordance with God’s design and expressed intent in the Bible, knowing that we do so before an ever-present God whose fixed order does not change. Like links in a chain, one broken link can disrupt the whole process and fall short of whole person health including body, mind, spirit, and relationship. 

Next in this series… How do we choose what to do?

Footnote:

                While beliefs should be practically identical between individuals since we all live in the same reality, each person’s values will differ to some extent.  There can be some legitimate space for different preferences between individuals. There can be legitimate space for different preferences in the same person at different stages of life.  These differences are with the realm of being good as long as they submit in each person at each stage of life to the values of our Creator as revealed to us in the Bible.