Charles
Runels, MD Read Genesis; Chapters 1-7
Walk 3 miles: actual miles walked _____
Eat 5 fruits or vegetables _____
Virtue: Temperance-Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
The first thing God did after making earth and heaven was make day and night—to make the “first day.” Did his choice to first make “the first day” indicated some importance to the unit of time, the “day?”
Christ said to pray for today’s bread and that we should “not think of tomorrow” because we have enough troubles today. Does the “day” concept help you to better health?
William Osler, MD—the founder of Internal Medicine at John’s Hopkins, and author of the authoritative treatise on medicine during his generation—when asked to give advice to the graduating class of John’s Hopkins, chose to stress the importance of living in “day-tight compartments.” He taught the benefits to health (mental and physical) of living one day at a time. He also recommended 15 to 20 minutes with the Bible daily (about the time it will take you to read the Bible daily using the plan in this course).
It’s impossible to physically exist simultaneously in multiple days. You can live only one minute, only one instant—the present. You lose the present when immobilized while considering yesterday, last week, tomorrow, or 5 minutes ago. Living the present day stationary because of thoughts of anything other than the present moment, you lose the present and so live more than one day at a time. Present moments pass wasted; in this way you lose the day, a series of days, a lifetime.
Periodically, you must climb the mountain and look at the path. Like tuning your car, this climb for adjustment should be scheduled and performed but not continuous and immobilizing or else there can be no travel. Making adjustments requires that you look behind and ahead and not only at the present moment in which you plant your feet. But, a planned limited journey to a mountaintop for a better view is a conscious constructive use of the present moment. Vision can be clarified means discussed later. But to anchor your feet at the lookout point (with regret or pride in the path behind and ahead while the day passes) deflates the mountain into a pit of imprisoned blindness. It’s movement that gives clarity to vision. Move, then stop. Move, then stop. It’s the way the lizard captures prey. It’s the way an insect finds nectar. It’s the way people find purpose, health, and enlightenment.
For superior health of spirit, mind, and body, make daily planned stops to look forward and behind. Use the scriptures and stillness and prayer to give vision from the mountain of God’s spirit infused by sipping the clean waters of ancient inspired scripture mixed with prayer. Use rest to restore energy; then spring to action. Stop daily: rest, pray, contemplate purpose, offer thanks, forgive, accept forgiveness. Then move with purpose and present-instant living. God-created a grid on which to build health and accomplishment: day-tight compartments with time to stop and time to go.
Use this stopped time, now, to find—the best purpose you can imagine (for now).
Now, go
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