A Little Effort Goes a Long Way in Our Spiritual and Physical Health

Do you dread exercise? Me too. We all know we need to do it in order to stay healthy, but I dare say for most of us, it’s sometimes hard to stay motivated to do something regardless of how much we know the importance of it. This is exactly what I talked about in today’s Proverbs 31 Encouragement for Today devotion,  Make Your Spiritual Fitness A Priority.

In the devotion I shared my personal trick to staying motivated to work out in the mornings, which is simply keeping my running shoes and workout clothes within arm’s reach of my bed so it’s the first thing I see when I wake up. But just as important, if not more, is our spiritual fitness, so I also try to always reach for my daily devotion before I even reach for my running shoes. Have you ever thought about how our spiritual health can improve if we do small, simple things like these to motivate ourselves to spend time in God’s Word each day?

One of my favorite verses about this topic is 3 John 1:2, “Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.” (NLT)  In this passage, John is talking to his friend Gaius, and John knows that Gaius is strong in his spiritual health. He is walking close with the Lord, but John was concerned about Gaius’s physical health because he had been under a lot of stress from people and situations in his life. Gaius was attentive to his spiritual health, but not necessarily his physical health, and John encouraged that both were vitally important. The Holman Christian Standard Bible translation shares that verse this way, “Dear friend, I pray that you may prosper in every way and be in good health physically just as you are spiritually.”  John wanted his friend to experience the same level of physical health as he was with his spiritual health, and wanted us all to know that the two go hand in hand.

God wants us to care about our spiritual health but also our physical health, and both of those things hinge on setting positive life habits that help us stay motivated to do what is needed to stay healthy in every way.

How do we stay spiritually healthy? Reading God’s Word, prayer, fellowshipping with other believers, and spending time in worship. How do we stay physically healthy? Feed our bodies with good things, maintain a healthy weight, and get our heart rates up from time to time! Obviously, both are important and both can determine how we experience life. It’s all just a matter of making our fitness in any regard a priority in our life.

As promised in today’s devotion, below are a few delicious, easy healthy recipes that I love and thought you might want to try, and you can always research a lot of great recipes on line. One of my favorite websites to find great delicious recipes to stay healthy, without having to have ten million ingredients you’ve never even heard of, is www.AllRecipes.com. 🙂  Healthy eating isn’t nearly as hard as we sometimes try to make it, and neither is having a healthy spiritual life.

Autumn Apple Salad
4 Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into bite size pieces
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup dried cherries
1 8 oz container of vanilla yogurt
*Stir them all together until yogurt coats everything, and enjoy! Quick, easy, and nutritious.

Breakfast Chicken Scramble
3/4 Cup Egg Whites (or strained egg whites from 4 eggs)
1 cup of cooked chicken breasts (cut into bite size pieces)
1/2 tsp basil or several leaves of fresh basil minced
1 tsp grated Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste
*Spray frying pan with cooking spray, and cook chicken in pan until warm and pour in egg whites. When almost scrambled, add in basil, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

Mouth Watering Salmon
1/2 cup Soy sauce
1/2 cup pure Maple Syrup
1 tsp minced garlic
*Mix the 3 ingredients together and pour over 2 pieces of salmon. Let marinate for 30-45 minutes in fridge. Bake at 375 ten to fifteen minutes. Top it off with a side of Quinoa and some steamed broccoli.

As I said in today’s devotion, it takes discipline to make time and energy to exercise and eat healthy,  but when we’re willing to put in the effort, we will always reap the benefits of that discipline. The same goes for our spiritual health as well. A little effort can go a long way in helping us live a happy, healthy life in every way.

Regarding your spiritual health, what outward action (new habit or “recipe”) can you start doing each day that will fuel an inner motivation to live an outward life that pleases and glorifies God and keeps you spiritually healthy and prosperous? 

3 Comments

  1. Robin on Monday, October 31, 2016 at 7:06 am

    Thanks for the encouragement. This was exactly the message i needed to hear.



  2. Vivian Adams on Monday, October 31, 2016 at 9:19 am

    Thank you Tracie I woke up this morning earlier than I usually do and when that happens it’s because God wants to tell me something! Well after reading Encouraging for Today and connecting to your blog, it was clear to me that we as a family need to attend service tonight instead of our weekly martial arts class. I was struggling last night asking God what we should do because we haven’t been to class in 3 weeks! Now that we are able to go back well I know now especially in this night with Halloween, that we should be worshipping our Lord.



  3. Melissa Henderson on Monday, October 31, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    Thanks for the recipes and the encouragement. 🙂 I don’t eat fish, but, everything else looks great. 🙂



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Tracie Miles is a bestselling author and the Director of COMPEL Training with Proverbs 31 Ministries.  She helps women grow stronger in their faith, pursue the life of purpose God designed them for and live a life of peace, joy and happiness despite their circumstances.

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