It is the second week of January and so begins the campaign for a new you. The quest for an improved version of you is in full swing. Throughout the week, most TV stations aired programs predominantly focused on the healthiest way to lose weight, from the best diets out there to myth-busting information about food types. Even premiere Gospel had a Personal Trainer on-air offering exercise tips and encouraging people to get in touch. Channel 5 had “Diet Secrets & How to Lose Weight”, Channel 4 – “How to Lose Weight Well” and London Live – “The Truth About Healthy Eating.” Channel 4Seven produced a program investigating healthy eating products and plans, and offer surprising tips for staying healthy in the New Year, even flying one of the hosts of the program to Hollywood to try out one of the food industry’s latest trend.
It’s the one time of year when adverts on TV for plastic surgery and breast augmentation are increased significantly. If healthy eating, dieting and exercise do not achieve results, you will get guaranteed results from plastic surgery to bolster the notion of what is perceived to be beautiful.
In all of this push for your physical wellbeing, I started to wonder where is the focus on spiritual and psychological improvement. Statistically, this time of year more people are depressed and the divorce rate increases. Alpha seems to have provided the perfect response by targeting the 1.2million London commuters with their adverts. But what about those outside of London? What are our churches doing to reach those in our communities? In our quest for beauty and nurturing our physical self, let’s nurture the fruit of the spirit as it is by the fruit of our spirit that we will be known. Matthew 7:16.
In the words of Sam Levenson
“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone”.
We all know that healthy eating and exercise is advisable and beneficial to us all, and there is no better time to attempt a new start at healthy living than the turning of a new year. However, as the old saying goes, beauty is within. Let us focus on the inner development of our spiritual well being, be beautiful from the inside out. Take this message to others inside our communities and beyond and encourage them to see that they can and should be healthy and strong in their belief and the words of our Saviour. Emphasise that beauty can be achieved and recognised by the utterance of wise words of advice and helping others on the path of spiritual upliftment. Wherever there is a helpful hand, a kind word, a needed testimony, a shoulder to lean on or any good deed rendered, the very characteristics of beauty are being exemplified
Let us make the most of the year ahead.