Health Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

One good thing about a longer commute: I've been listening to the podcast, Truth for Life, featuring my favorite Scottish preacher, Alistair Begg. I started listening because I loved hearing his brogue, but he really is a solid, interesting Bible expositor.

I'm also currently reading a book by Begg, Pray Big: Learn to Pray Like an Apostle, wherein he looks at the prayers of Paul contained in his letter to the Ephesians.

There's an interesting section in the second chapter, "Prayer is Spiritual (But Not Impractical)," that makes me take a pause:

     Praying about health (which, if we had the chance to listen in on the prayers of Western Christians, would likely come in at number one) is rare  -  almost non-existent  -  in the Bible. So why are we praying about it so much?
     It's because we don't want to die.
     We want to live. We've got a sneaking suspicion that what we've got now, this side of death, is actually better than what God has for us then, on the other side of death. So we want to hang on to what we've got. But instead, we need to believe  -  really believe  -  that these things are true:

God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ  -  by grace you have been saved  -  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV)

     You have now been raised with Christ into the heavenly places. You have been made part of a family that will never come to an end. One day, you will live in a new heaven and a new earth. You will see your God face to face and, with a heart no longer burdened and distracted by sin and a body no longer broken and decaying in frailty, you will praise him.
     And you and I just want to pray that we'd stay healthy and live long?! All that matters may be brought before God, but what we bring before God is not always what matters most.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...It is so easy to get caught up in what we can see, taste, smell, hear, and touch and lose "sight" of what's most important. I'm not saying it's okay to be "so heavenly-minded that you're no earthly good," but there's no value in living life the other way around, either.