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People Are Spiritual Beings

It does nothing to encourage a broken motorcycle.  It stays the same.  There is no improvement.  The same with refrigerators, television sets and power saws. They can be repaired but encouragement means nothing to them.

People are different.  Broken bones and broken hearts both get better when encouraging words enter those in which they reside.  Loving kindness is medicine for the ill and injured.  It helps them get well.  Deprive anyone of such goodness and recovery may be impaired.

Spirituality defines the difference between a motorcycle and a man. The motorcycle is a machine.  The man is a living soul, a spiritual being with a physical quality.

The unity of the physical and spiritual was illustrated when, on occasion, Jesus healed a man’s physical disability with words that included "your sins are forgiven."  Jesus knew that the fear, guilt, and other conflict in the man’s soul, contributed to his unhappiness and may even have caused, the man’s anguished condition.

The human is a totally unified physical/spiritual system.  One cannot break a bone without a spiritual reaction.  A minor break might be ignored but a serious break can trigger serious discouragement.   Discouragement is a spiritual condition and needs an antidote, a medicine, to restore a positive attitude. The medicine is usually some form of loving kindness from another. So, a broken bone can injure the spirit and spiritual care is a part of the healing process.  All physical setbacks include spiritual challenge repair better when bathed in some form of love which is medicine for the soul.  

When asked "how are you?" your spiritual condition is being assessed.  You may answer "just fine".  But the full answer may be far more complex, too much to share in a passing contact.  Nevertheless it is a spirit-aimed inquiry. If you are recovering from an illness or injury the honest answer might be "worried", "hopeful", "thankful" or "frustrated". Each of those words describes a spiritual condition. 

Occasionally a passing question like "How you doing" is answered "Praise the Lord I’m saved."  Or, "Thank God I’m forgiven".  Those too are answers that speak of one’s spiritual state.  They are ultimate answers describing the profound concern of being right with God.  But the inquirer wanted to know the condition of his spirit today in the here and now.  Different words are needed to give that answer.

Being saved and enjoying forgiveness are rich spiritual gifts.  They are spiritual facts that can be positive contributors to physical health.  Saved and forgiven people should be able to sleep better, laugh more freely and digest more properly.  Enormous joy should dwell in their hearts and that impacts the body positively.  Nevertheless saved and forgiven people also feel scared, worried and lonely when the trials and tribulations of everyday life land on them.  And those spiritual conditions almost always need the aide of fellow human beings.  They need love medicine.