I realized a long time ago that humans experience optimal wellness lifestyles when they practice Natural Lifestyle Matching. This story goes way back to the beginning of my wellness journey when I was failing middle school PE. I was a kid in the 1960s and my life was very different growing up than my parent’s had been. They had grown up on farms in southern Oklahoma during the 1930s. There they experienced both the Great Depression and the Dustbowl, and then my father went off to fight in World War II.
NATURAL FITNESS AND NUTRITION
My mother grew up starting her day with chores like hand pumping 100 gallons of water for the cattle she had to walk to retrieve each morning from the other end of their 80 acres, carrying water into the house for use there and then out, milking the cows, gathering eggs, and many other tasks. She then went to school where she had PE and sports. When she returned home, she had many of the same chores to repeat.
Her life was full of exertion and my dad’s was even more strenuous with dawn to dusk cotton picking for one dollar a day. They ate natural, whole foods that they mostly raised themselves and harvested and butchered. You could say their lives literally consisted of a strenuous, laboring style workout combined with very clean eating. They lived a lifestyle that was much closer to our ancestors Natural Lifestyle that stretches, without much change in natural exertion, back to prehistoric times.
“A worker’s appetite works for him because his hunger drives him on” Proverbs 16:26 CSB
My lifestyle as a youth in contrast consisted of very little physical activity and a great deal more soda pop drinking etc. up until seventh grade. Then my middle school PE teacher, who doubled as the football and baseball coach made me a deal. If I could do one pull up by the end of the semester, I would not fail PE. My father who was a steelworker built me a pull-up bar out of pipe on the shed that he worked his second job in welding at the back of our property.
“If you find honey, eat only what you need; otherwise you’ll get sick from it and vomit” Proverbs 25:16 CSB
I struggled for three weeks to be able to finally do one pull up. Do you know what I discovered after I got one? Three came a lot easier than one did. My whole life changed. I started running around the blocks in our neighborhood and tried to go faster each time. I didn’t know what I was doing but it all worked out because I became driven to exercise and eat well and became successful in both PE and athletics.
NATURAL LIFESTYLE MATCHING
This is where I began to study the biochemistry of healthy lifestyles versus unhealthy lifestyles. I have not ever stopped. What I’ve discovered is that trying to live a Natural Lifestyle Match leads to the best wellness outcomes on almost every level. What do I mean by this? Science has discovered the importance of the natural circadian rhythm of being exposed consistently to bright light during the day and to darkness at night as well as the natural vegetation outdoors which give off oxygen. With all of our screen use many of us are destroying this rhythm. Relatedly, it has been discovered that eating should align with the active daylight hours. Most importantly along the way I also discovered that the truths of the Bible align with this wisdom as I have alluded to with the Scripture inserts. The most recent example is the realization of the value of fasting, since our ancestors had periods of time they didn’t have food.
There are many other examples that we will explore but for now the one I want to emphasize is the Natural Lifestyle Match of traditional courtship, marriage, and family. God designed humans for marriage and the family that the sexual integrity of the bond produces. Again, natural, and social science agree. Jesus said in Matthew 19:5 that “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” CSB. As we explored in the previous two posts, He also created a Natural Lifestyle with regard to the birth of children and the health benefits that accrue from that, especially for women.
NATURAL LIFESTYLE MARRIAGE BENEFITS
Both sexes benefit from creating a Natural Lifestyle Match in the area of lifelong marriage. Being married significantly reduces your chances of hospitalization, need for surgery, dying after bypass surgery, getting pneumonia, getting rheumatoid arthritis, gum disease, viral infection, dementia, clinical depression, heart attack, cancer, being jailed, being murdered, being killed in a car wreck, and committing suicide.
We are going to talk much more about this powerful insight but for now let’s just summarize by saying that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and the wisdom of the Bible brings wholistic human wellness.
