My thoughts for today on Qigong Strength Training – Acknowledging the Creator and Connector of bodies and minds –
Though I don’t hold the view that “all is one” which is its mantra, Qigong Strength Training sure has been a good physical workout for me these last two weeks. It’s been a real joy to do this workout with my friend who also happens to be my sister, a most talented, thoughtful, and caring massage therapist. She is also a Qigong Practitioner and introduced me to this workout. Qigong Practitioner, Jeff Primack, is featured on the DVD. Though he does not smile in the DVD, he conveys a caring, pastoral quality that is endearing. You get to see him do the exercises (ponytail and all) and hear him instruct, encourage, and enjoy each moment (in his marked California way). Superimposed on the DVD are lights that point you to envision the electrical fields from our bodies. I cannot help but think: Where do these come from? How did we get this light these energy fields? I looked to the Bible to help answer my questions. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”1 And so, I thank our Creator, the great, loving, and unmatched Triune God, Father, Son who is Jesus Christ the God-Man the second Adam, and Holy Spirit. He is Three-in-One, infinitely above us and “other” than us, the creation. He alone gives good and perfect gifts like our bodies and our minds that work so well together with Him since, in His abundant mercy and grace, He gives us opportunity to enter into His mind through His perfect Word which teaches us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.2 With all due respect to Mr. Primack, we are not to empty our minds to a “no mind” state, for that would be rejecting a good gift. Yet, I understand that we are to rid our minds of anxious thoughts, actually, to cast them onto God because He cares for us.3 The mind is a part of the body which God composed (and so much more). Therefore, the body cannot say to the mind “I have no need of you.” 4
It can be helpful to quote Bible passages (I am doing it in this essay). However, in order to expose our minds to the full counsel of God, we must take it as a whole and in context. How is this done? By reading large sections of the Old and New Testaments each day beginning with Genesis through Malachi and Matthew through Revelation, and continuing throughout life in a revolving study with a heart that seeks His will. Over time, you will then understand that God entered into history by His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem a people for Himself. Through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, His people are justified, adopted, and continually sanctified as He helps us to discipline our minds and bodies through faith in Him, and out of love for Him in return, that we might share in His holiness.5 He makes His people sane in an often insane world which came about when man, the first Adam, lost his mind and rebelled against his Creator.6 “Rather, train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training (read: any physical training or eating program) is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive and suffer reproach because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” 7 I think this means that God saves all people from many things each day to sustain life, and that He regenerates (puts faith in Christ into) some such that they long for Him, await His return with a future focus, being satisfied with nothing but to live together with Him forever in the new heavens and the new earth, and yet content with whatever they are given in this fallen world while they patiently and eagerly wait. This is good news because Jesus will never refuse to give abundant life now and for eternity to anyone who comes to Him in trust and hope, crying out to Him alone for help.
As I look forward to resuming the workout tomorrow after having had a setback of lower back spasms these last few days, He reminds me “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 8 How delightfully peculiar that His people find strength outside themselves, in Christ, and that He that makes His people strong warriors on the inside by placing His everlasting kingdom within them, as their eyes look to Him alone, the true King, the Creator of heaven and earth.9
1. James 1:17 2. Romans 12:1-2 3. 1 Peter 5:7 4. 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 5. Hebrews 12:10 6. Genesis 3 7. 1 Timothy 4:7b-10 8. 2 Corinthians 12:9 9. Colossians 1:11-23 I can’t help but quote this passage on the preeminence of Christ here: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
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