Editorial October 14, 1985 Issue

Health and fitness: focus on self or new spiritual comprehension?

ALLISON W. PHINNEY, JR.

One advertisement would urge you to sign up for nutrition and diet seminars. Another would like to get you into stress management courses, biofeedback sessions, and water relaxation retreats. Then there are those fitness and aerobics classes—after tennis lessons and jogging, of course. And all this somewhere in between tanning and skin care appointments.

While it's true there is something commendable in being disciplined and normally active, the quest for fitness can become all-absorbing. Many seem to believe that managing the body in the 1980's is about as complicated as coping with the instrument panel of a jumbo jet during takeoff!

Christ Jesus told his followers something quite different. He said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on."^{ Matt. 6:25.} He taught we must first seek that kingdom of God which he was showing humankind. Then, he said, we would see God caring for our needs.