By David Hegg
I imagine we’re all caught up in the great adventure of health care. We all need it, and it seems everywhere someone is telling me the price of staying healthy is increasing. We all have faced the horror of losing a job and realizing health care plans for the unemployed or underemployed take a lot of cash and don’t give much in return.
But recently, I’ve been concerned that an essential question has yet to be asked and answered. Here it is: Just what is “health?” Who gets to decide what “healthy” is, and even more importantly, what makes a “healthy” life?
One of the challenges is deciding what a “healthy” body is. For many, it has everything to do with how you look. Are you slim and trim and able to wear skinny jeans? Do you look good in jogging shorts? And how about when the sun is out and the surf’s up? Are you swimsuit healthy?
Those with a bit more sense insist that as long as your numbers are reasonable, you must be healthy … regardless of how you look in spandex. Is blood pressure OK? Cholesterol OK? Blood sugar where it should be? Congrats, you’re healthy!
Sadly, there are scores of folks with good bodies and good numbers who are just plain miserable. They look good, but their choices have left them with no one to love, and they’ve become addicted to the hypocrisy of trying to look happy. They’re ready to fake it until they make it. But the finest physique and latest fashion don’t make an emotionally healthy life.
So, what is health? There is no argument that it includes the proper physical functions of our bodies and the ability to do the things life asks of us. But those who think health is only a matter of physical processes don’t understand the realities of life.
Health might be thought of as a three-legged stool. Each leg is necessary but insufficient alone. The first leg is the medical health of the body. The second leg is the emotional well-being of the person. The third leg is the one that so often determines the health of the first two. It is the moral core of the person. The ancients called it the soul. The soul is that immaterial part of us where consciousness and moral decision-making reside. Thomas Nagel persuasively argues that this leg of the human stool demonstrates the absurdity of a purely materialistic theory of origins and evolutionary progress. Purely physical processes can never produce the immaterial consciousness we all enjoy. And it is this part of the human organism that most needs to be healthy.
It is the soul that determines who we are and the choices we make. The soul archives our values, character, virtue and ethical paradigm. In the arena of the soul, we sift information, opportunities, and risks and then determine the course we will pursue. This is important because we all know physical and emotional health primarily results from excellent or not-so-good choices. If you put dangerous substances into your body, you will adversely affect your physical health. If you fail to learn self-control and how to love someone sacrificially, you will damage your emotional health.
So, what about affordable health care? Here’s the deal: The most critical component of a healthy life can be improved without any insurance policy or professional help. Exercise your soul. Think deeply about the great questions of life. Who are you? Why are you here? Where are you going? What kind of person do you most want to be? I believe the answers to all these start with a recognition that our lives matter and are heading somewhere because Almighty God created us as his image bearers to bring him glory in all things and live out his truth and love in all directions. That keeps my soul healthy, my outlook joyful, and my life filled with real purpose. And it turns out that if you like God, you can keep him … forever!
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
