Did you know that in a tiny piece of brain tissue– the size of a grain of sand– there are 100,000 neurons and one billion synapses talking to each other to coordinate the outworking of your body and choices? God made our brains a crazy combination of flesh, fat, fluid, chemicals, and electricity. Our brains, like the rest of our body, depend on oxygen and water. Just 2% dehydration can harm your memory, attention, and other cognitive function– which makes me think I should swap this coffee for some water. 

God’s creation of the human body was so much more involved than just making a human-shaped sand castle and performing mouth-to-mouth. As He formed the human, He made an immune system that has a lifelong memory. As it replicates itself, it screens the cells that are failing the (near-impossible) task of discerning between self and non-self. Our system, when healthy, destroys the immune cells that would attack our bodies instead of our external invaders. 

God looked at His astounding feat of interwoven engineering, beauty, and metaphysics and said “it is very good.” 

This mind-bogglingly intricate creature He called humanity was imbued with His Spirit, and given responsibilities to be like little versions of Him in the temporal realm. We look to Him to learn how to rule as He rules to help the land and animals flourish as He intended. As we act as Garden Royalty, we also have a responsibility to honor the creation of our own bodies. 

While we are images of God, we are not God. So as we co-rule, we also recognize the differences between us–the created– and our infinite Creator. Where He is unending and unlimited in power, knowledge, and love, we are finite. We have limits. We come to an end– at least until we are reunited in perfect communion with Him. 

And this distinction between us is good. It helps us see His worthiness. Acknowledging, even rejoicing in, our human limitations is a form of worship to the One who created us. He could have made us without such limits. But in His wisdom and grace, He gave us each limit we bump up against. So how do we embrace our limits, honor our bodies, and worship God in our finitude?

Sleep

One of the limits most often in our view is the daily diminishment of energy. How often, as a mom of three kids under five, I am thinking about sleep! Nap schedules and alarms and the timing of my second hit of caffeine so I can fall asleep at night but not while parenting in the afternoon. The dwindling of our energy is only exacerbated by our resistance to it. We rely on caffeine instead of getting the proper amount of sleep. We stay up late on screens, trying to squeeze in the last ounces of productivity, thus hindering our focus during healthy productivity hours. 

We need quality sleep. It’s about more than hours, though most of us don’t get the hours we need either. We need to honor the way our bodies want to work with circadian rhythms, allowing screen-free wind down time to make space for our melatonin production. The type of UV rays that shine throughout the day change, and our eyes take that in if we step outside and regulate the hormones we need based on the time of day. Our bodies work with the rhythms of the rest of creation! Isn’t God amazing? 

Aging

The transhuman movement is an extreme example of our resistance to aging. But the resistance to aging is highly integrated in our culture. The motivation of exercising to keep bodies looking like we’re in the prime of our lives. The way we try to fight the wrinkles or the gray hairs to pretend like we haven’t lived that much life. 

Aging doesn’t have to be a bad thing. That is a cultural conception that not all cultures share! The disintegration of multigenerational family life contributes to this. Young people don’t know how to have conversations with old people. We’ve lost the art of seeking wisdom from our elders. We have lost our eye for the beauty of laugh lines and crows feet from smiling eyes. Honoring the aging process can look like seeking the wisdom and beauty that generations ahead of you can share. This makes it easier, as you develop that sense of beauty, to accept and even enjoy the signs of age in your own body’s changes. And as the transhuman movement pursues immortality by rejecting our humanity, as Christians we embrace our humanity, knowing we already have immortality promised and secured in communion with our Triune God. 

If you want to develop your acceptance of aging, my husband recently enjoyed reading Dust to Dust by Jen Wilkin.

Nutrition

Our bodies need a diversity of nutrients. One of the semantic changes we made in our house a couple of years ago was switching from eating “healthy” food to “nutritious” food. It helped us think more holistically about foods and talk about it in a different way with our kids. For example, you could eat only blueberries for a whole day (as our toddlers would love to do) and technically that’s healthy, but your body needs more nutrients than that. So it’s not holistically nutritious. It’s semantics– yes– but it helped us reframe things in our own minds.

Our brains depend on cholesterol. This health culture boogeyman is necessary for proper brain function, and without enough of it, our brain cells begin dying. We need naturally occurring fats and complex carbohydrates (yes, alongside protein) for our bodies to thrive. Reductionist nutrition and processed foods are not ideal. But then again, whole foods aren't as nutritious as they once were since we’ve stripped the soil of nutrients with our industrial farming practices. It’s an imperfect environment outside of the Garden, but we can honor these God-made bodies by eating diverse nutrition and taking pleasure in the vast array of flavors we experience through our taste buds.

Pain

The fact that we get sick or injured is a recognition that we are not invincible. We require healing. How can we honor our bodies in this suffering that exists as a result of the Fall? 

First, we simply recognize the humble state of our bodies and thank God for being the One on whom everything depends. Second, as humble confession, repentance, and reconciliation worship God in this sin-ridden world, so too can participating in healing through prayer, caretaking, and healthcare professions honor the body as good and worth investing in. Even more, we can worship God for how He designed the body to direct and participate in its own healing. Our medical professionals often partner with what God has already begun in the body itself.

Liturgies to Worship instead of Idolize

Even in the idea of writing this post, I weighed the value of it because our culture so often idolizes wellness culture, exercise, and body image. We have turned what is good and leads to worship into an end in itself. And yet, perhaps this is a sign that we need proper orientation all the more. We need to understand how to pursue wellness, exercise, and honoring our bodies in the context of worship to God. We need to have these good things firmly planted in the soil of God-focused efforts, rather than vanity, insecurity, or indulgence.

One method of fixing our gaze in the midst of daily decisions is by integrating liturgies into the mundane. Tish Harrison Warren does this in her book Liturgy of the Ordinary. She helps readers think through the worshipful liturgies that can be intentionally meditated on in embodied moments like brushing one’s teeth, eating, drinking tea, and sleeping, among other everyday moments. 

As you consider what embodied acts you need the most assistance turning into worship instead of idolatry of appearance, ability, or pleasure, consider making a habit of using a breath prayer in those daily moments. 

How to Create a Breath Prayer

Pick your everyday moment. 

Identify the truth of how that embodied idea can point you to God’s goodness, worthiness, or identity.

Break that truth into two parts, one for the inhale and one for the exhale. 

Repeat the breath prayer several times as you begin to sleep, eat, notice aging signs, find a band-aid, etc.

Example Breath Prayers

Inhale:  In sleeping and waking,
Exhale:  I always depend on You.

Inhale:  These wrinkles display
Exhale:  Your grace to me.

Inhale:  Food is a gift
Exhale:  for function and pleasure.

Inhale:  Creator and Great Physician,
Exhale:  in this pain, I seek you.

Your Turn

What area is hardest for you to turn into worship? Are there aspects of the human body that amaze you? Share your reflections as a created being below!