Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Physical Disciplines Part 1
Have you ever considered that your body might be your greatest ally—not your enemy—in recovery from unwanted sexual behaviors? Many of us approach healing as primarily spiritual or psychological, overlooking the role our physical existence plays in transformation.
Your body isn't just a vessel carrying your spirit through life; it's an integrated part of who God designed you to be. From the very beginning, Genesis shows humanity as formed from dust and brought to life by divine breath—we are simultaneously matter and spirit. This isn't incidental to your recovery journey—it's foundational.
In this episode, Josh Glaser and James Craig explore five physical disciplines that God has woven into our design as assets for healing: breathing, hydration, eating, sleeping, and exercise. These aren't merely biological necessities but theological realities that point to our dependence on our Creator. Each discipline, when practiced intentionally, helps regulate our bodies and minds, creating space for healthier choices and emotional stability.
Resources:
For more information or to join click one of the links below.
Manna - Men seeking freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, temptation, and shame.
Oasis - Women seeking freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, temptation, and shame.
Compass - Wives seeking healing from betrayal and broken trust.
Awaken Men's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
What if you could work with your body for recovery instead of just against it? Those of us dealing with sexual sin struggles probably know that our brains develop these neural pathways that end up working against the new heart that God has given us our heart's desire for sobriety, for healing. But what if your body can actually be a God-ordained asset to your healing? I'm James Craig, spiritual coach and director of projects here at Regen, and I'm joined by author, speaker and executive director of Regeneration, josh Glaser. Josh, you're laughing because we don't usually introduce you that way, but it's true, you have an awesome book.
Speaker 2:You make me sound very. I was like who's on the podcast? Is it an author?
Speaker 1:Josh and I are going to dive into the importance of considering our physical existence when it comes to walking in the spirit. That's an interesting sentence right there. We're going to unpack that and we're going to look at five different categories of physical disciplines to aid your journey towards sexual integrity, but these can also aid healing from betrayal trauma. This can also give you wisdom when you're discipling your kids. We were talking before and most of us weren't actually taught how to work with our bodies At least Josh and I weren't and many that we walk with have not been taught how to work with our bodies At least Josh and I weren't and many that we walk with have not been taught how to walk with our bodies for the good of walking with Jesus. So, josh, let's start out by talking about this tension that I'm already raising. Aren't these issues aren't sexual sin, struggles or even betrayal trauma? Aren't these spiritual issues to some degree? Or perhaps you could say psychological to some degree? Like, I want us to unpack a little bit of why we actually believe really deeply at Regen that these aren't just purely spiritual issues, and one way we put this actually in the spirit module of Awaken, which is the module we run from July through September, that we're actually called to walk in the spirit bodily, because we are matter and spirit by God's design.
Speaker 1:So let me just read this scripture. Then I want to hear some of your thoughts about this. I know you have a lot of them. I probably learned a lot of this from you. But Genesis 2, 7 says that the lord god formed a man, formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man become, became a living being. So we see both uh, dust, which is a way to talk about matter, right, physical nature, and we see this breath of life, the spirit of God. We see both right at the beginning here in Genesis. So you had just said we're matter and spirit yeah, genesis 2 7 is the framing text.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to give you a second to respond, if you have something there to jump in with.
Speaker 2:Again, we're emphasizing the physical today, but these are very interconnected, is what we're trying to say, yeah, I would say in my experience and this is just from my personal life, but also in ministry for the last 25 years that we probably can't say enough. Whatased in a body, that we are to be a human, is to be both simultaneously, and you remove one from the other and you cease to be a human. And I think, especially when it comes to understanding ourselves to be body creatures, that we don't just have a body, we are in fact body, uh, is is key. And and I say that I don't think we a body, we are in fact body is key. And I say that I don't think we can say it enough, in part because I've been saying that and learning that for going on at least probably 15 years now, thanks in large part to theology of the body, pope John Paul II's, theology of the body. And still I find myself kind of drifting into this kind of territory of almost considering myself, thinking about myself as primarily a mind, primarily a spirit. And we live in a culture that very, very, very much kind of considers the human person as kind of the split between body and spirit, just the language we use, the way we think about our bodies, we almost kind of think of our bodies as an accessory that we wear and you can manipulate it, you can change it, you can dye it, you can work out so it looks better. You can have surgery so it looks better. You can have surgery so that you look very, very different than you do, or so that you even look like you're a different sex than you are. And yet scripture teaches us clearly that we are our bodies. There's something really unique there that's more than we can unpack today, but I think so when it comes to the idea of recovery and growing in our own sexual integrity, our bodies have got to play a part in that in so many ways.
Speaker 2:And I do want to just give a little bit of a more, just a heads up to people. You mentioned that we're going to talk about some physical activities, disciplines, today, and I've taken a peek at your notes. They're not what most people are thinking. I think most people would go oh yeah, we're going to talk about Christian like things you do with your bodies. It'll be like traditional, quote-unquote spiritual disciplines which, by the way, are all things we do with our bodies. But yeah, but you're actually going at almost a different level altogether, yeah, which I'm excited to get into anyway. So that's yeah so two cents.
Speaker 1:So we often say that our bodies are a temple. Right, it's, it's straight out of the new testament. Your body is a temple. And I don't know about you, josh, but I hear that and I'm like, okay, I'm supposed to take care of my body, but I've never really had someone unpack really in detail what that looks like. I'm a detailed thinker, as you know very well, and if I can't really connect that very abstract concept to more particular, I'm kind of left like okay, like I shouldn't be sexually sinning, obviously, like my body's a temple.
Speaker 1:But we don't actually realize that when it says in scripture it's another good framing text love your neighbor as you love yourself. And it also says in scripture and this is going to sound controversial to our modern ears but it says no one hates their own body. Now, I know we live in a time where we can, in a sense, hate our own body, but I still think that the scriptural vision there is true that if we want to learn what it means to love other people, but we've never actually learned how to take care of ourselves, we're not going to be able to do it effectively. So many of us were told to begin taking care of our parents or our siblings in unhealthy ways before we actually learned how to take care of our own body, and that's a huge gap in discipleship. Jay stringer, in unwanted, actually says that it's a parent's responsibility to teach their children about things like nutrition, things like exercise and sleep. So we're going to do a little bit of that today. We're going to talk about almost like yeah, like you said, josh, a foundational level of what does it mean to walk in the spirit, bodily, or to walk bodily, spiritually, however you want to think about it.
Speaker 1:So five key areas, okay, five key areas of physical disciplines that we're going to consider today. There's so many, there could be more, but these are so fundamental and I'm going to order them in terms of how quickly you will die if you forsake these. That's how fundamental we're getting, okay. So first category is breathing. Second is hydration, third is eating. Fourth is sleeping is sleeping, and fifth is exercise.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that you will directly die if you don't get exercise right, maybe, yeah, I mean, um, god be with those who are physically unable to literally get out of bed or whatever, um, but we do know that that's not how god designed our bodies to work, that avoiding exercise actually contributes to a host of physical and mental issues. So we're going to start out with the most fundamental here, which is breathing. Okay, josh, what has been your experience with utilizing your breath this very breath that we just heard about in Genesis 2-7, this very breath that we just heard about in Genesis 2-7 as an asset toward walking with Jesus, as an asset toward just walking? Well, you know, being at peace or resting or whatever Like. How have you seen your breath come into play here or not? This could be brand new for you.
Speaker 2:I don't actually know which of these you're more familiar with than not. Today. It is relatively new for me Well, I shouldn't say new, relatively untapped for me. I've been led through some breathing exercises, ranging from breath prayers going way back for me in my spiritual journey, which have been beautiful and wonderful assets, to using specific kinds of breathing to help me regulate emotions, but it's it's not formed in me, it's not a habit, like I don't. I don't typically think of it of breathing as a go-to when it comes to a spiritual asset, um, or a recovery asset, although I'm, I'm trying to learn, so I'm, I'm eager for you to dive in here. So, and, by the way, what's fascinating to me? Like, I don't know that, any of us, maybe some, but I can't, I don't know anybody that would say like, yeah, one of the things my parents taught me how to do when I was a kid was how to breathe. Maybe a coach or maybe a band. I met one guy, a counselor who did that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, like an athlete, athletic coach or band teacher right, but do it, but but for a specific purpose.
Speaker 2:Not like you know, like because because we, because we do, we know how to breathe. You know it's one of I mean, I don't know if it's just you know we come out of the womb and maybe we get a you know a smack from the doctor to help clear our lungs and then we breathe. But but we also I do know that we learn unhealthy habits when it comes to breathing. I was talking to somebody the other day who was like literally in the middle of an anxiety attack and was was going like this and I was like what's, what's going on with the breath there? And and they said I'm, I'm taking deep breaths. I was like those are not deep breaths, it's very shallow breathing, but they're trying to regulate so anyway. But so what, when you think about breathing as an asset to our spiritual growth, to our recovery, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I think about the fact that we're needy, and this is one of the most liberating realities that we can realize as followers of Jesus. We're not unlimited beings. We're not like we said. We're not pure spirits, like angels. We need to breathe. So I looked it up world record 24 minutes and 37.36 seconds of a man named Budimir Sobat, from Croatia, back in 2021. So the absolute longest. As far as we know, a human has ever not breathed and still is alive, and he used oxygen before. You know, this wasn't just like a let me just go underwater and hold my breath. So less than way less than an hour is the max you could survive without breath. So the first thing I just want to highlight is sometimes we can be so focused on the spiritual like you said earlier, josh that we don't realize we are limited. We're not unlimited beings. We have things like the need to breathe and all these other things we're going to get into that God has actually wired us to need. In other words, he's created us to be dependent on him. I think that that can be liberating.
Speaker 1:There's actually a book that I think it won runner up for book of the year from CT a few years ago, but it's by a guy named Kelly Capik. I haven't been able to read it yet, but I'm actually forgetting the title right now. You could look up his name, you'll find it. But basically, it's the good of honoring our limits. Our culture teaches us that we're limitless.
Speaker 1:I've literally seen billboards around la where I live, from a hospital usc hospital where the tagline is limitless and part of what we're saying today is, starting with breath, that God has actually designed us to be needy, to rely on his sustaining breath. If God didn't design the atmospheric pressure to be exactly what it is, we would not be able to breathe in the air that we breathe. If God didn't provide us trees, we would not be able to breathe the oxygen we need. So I just want to start with that idea that this puts us in a posture. All five of these, when handled well, I think, put us in a posture. All five of these, when handled well, I think, put us in a posture of realizing I can't, just like go live in the spirit in the desert without any water or air or food, like at some point. We need each of these things. We need them from God's hand wouldn't what it?
Speaker 2:what strikes me is the irony of you're introducing these as as things for us to do to serve as an asset to our spiritual lives, serve as an asset to our bodily lives, assets to us as in recovery from unwanted sexual behaviors. Dig into what these things are right out of the gates. Your first point is they point to our dependency that we are designed by God to need, and that's very good. That strikes me as a pretty compelling case against the idea that we're spiritual. Disciplines are, in and of themselves, things that originate from us. They're things that we do, or things that even move us towards some kind of legalism that we're earning something because they demonstrate our neediness. And if they demonstrate our neediness, then they put us in relationship with a God who desires to meet our needs. I love that. What a place to begin.
Speaker 1:So part of what he has designed us to do is to breathe deeply. I'm gonna get really practical here. Our lungs and this is gonna show how little anatomy I know I should have had my good friend who's a doctor on with us, josh, but our lungs basically push up against our diaphragm, which basically separates our lungs from our intestines. So we were actually designed by God to breathe deeply to the bottom of our lungs. What this does is it helps our brain know that we're in a safe place, and when we're not in that place, god designed us so that if a lion were chasing after us, we're not going to breathe that deeply, because to breathe shallow in the situation of running from a wild animal helps our body know that we need to be in fight or flight mode. But you can see immediately if you're thinking about it.
Speaker 1:We don't want to be there all the time. If we're not literally, if our lives are not in physical danger or some other sort of real danger, we want to be regulated, and so one of the first keys for understanding how God designed breath to work is that we're meant to breathe all the way down to the bottom of our lungs, and I've done this a lot with clients. Josh, I start out most coaching sessions with prayer, meditating on Jesus and taking deep breaths, and one of the things some of my clients have noticed is like whoa, like my chest hurts to breathe this deeply, to push down to the bottom of my lungs against my diaphragm. It hurts because I'm so used to living at the top of my lungs, I'm so used to living in that kind of sympathetic nervous system fight, flight, fawn or lungs. I'm so used to living in that kind of sympathetic nervous system fight, flight, fawn or freeze I'm just stuck there. And so to actually take two, five minutes, whatever we do, it's kind of a shock to the system sometimes to breathe that deeply.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So let me slow you down a little bit, cause you talked about parasympathetic nervous system. You talked about not wanting to be in that fight flight freezer, fawn space in our brains. So break it down for for our listeners, for me, when it comes to, how does that help us in recovery, like what? So you do that at the beginning of your coaching sessions with the guys who are trying to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors and learn to walk in sexual integrity? Why, what's what happens if I'm, if I'm breathing from up here, if I'm, if I'm in, if my brain isn't some somehow from, if I'm, if the way that I'm breathing is, is telling my brain that I need to be fight-flight freezer or font?
Speaker 1:So much of what is driving us towards sexual sin, so much of what keeps us stuck when we're in a state of betrayal, trauma. Even I'm not yet a parent, josh you're the one who wrote the book on parenting but I imagine so much of what a parent might feel as their child is wrestling with sexual sin or unwanted sexual attraction or whatever is feeling stuck in that place. And that place is not. I've heard it said like this, and you could probably say it a bunch of different ways but that means that we don't have access to the fullness of our brain. That we don't have. I've heard one guy say the mind of Christ, if it's located anywhere physically, it's in the prefrontal cortex, which can't be accessed effectively when we're breathing so shallow, when we're stuck in dysregulation. And so a big part of actually learning how to soothe ourselves especially thinking of someone who soothes themselves through porn and masturbation or other forms of fantasy or whatever is we can actually by God's design this is a total God-ordained gift of God is we can actually by God's design this is a total God-ordained gift of God is we could slow down. I'll give two different brief exercises. One is we could just take deep breath in through our nose, going all the way against the diaphragm, maybe seven seconds, and then breathe out, perhaps through our mouth, although breathing out doesn't matter quite as much. From what I understand, maybe for nine seconds, and what that does is, by breathing out slower, you're telling your body I can relax. I mean, how different is that from letting you know social media take you deeper and then go to a porn site and then, okay, now I have a chemical release that's helped me relax. Instead, we're saying God's given me this ability. I'm going to take these deep breaths and get back to a place of regulation so I can navigate, perhaps, the difficult emotions I'm feeling, or I can navigate the difficult relationships. One other one real quick.
Speaker 1:I just want to throw in another really helpful breath technique is box breathing. Box breathing is four count in, again through the nose, four count hold, then four count out and then four count, hold, and you might repeat that for one to three minutes and you'll be shocked. I encourage you, pause right now and, if you can breathe in for four counts, hold out for four, hold and notice after a minute, maybe two minutes, how much different your body feels. Key into it a little bit and notice if your blood pressure is a little bit lower, if you feel a little bit more calm. And again, we're not advocating for this as, like um, I don't know a kind of empty your mind mindfulness technique.
Speaker 1:We're saying, hey, god has actually put the breath of life into us and what we're doing when we're stuck in that dysregulation is we're like barely breathing it in, so to speak. Right, we're barely receiving the gift if I can put it that way, josh of what God has given us. So you're not going to need to box breathe your whole day, right? But maybe you hit a really difficult moment in your day and you're tempted just to scroll or to eat or to go to sex for calm, and instead you could take a minute, five minutes, take some deep breaths, do some box breathing, breathing, invite the lord into it and josh mentioned this earlier like you could pray simple phrases as you're breathing in and as you're breathing out. That's what we call breath prayer and that can be so helpful in addition to all this.
Speaker 2:But invite the lord in and notice what he does, even just through these breath techniques one thought I have when I was in early recovery, we did a lot of scripture memorization, uh, and, and specifically like trying to each individually pick what. What are the verses that you specifically find that you need when you're triggered? And so for me, fear is a huge place where I'm triggered. Um, triggered meaning, you know, tempted to look at porn back then, or tempted to go to media now, or tempted to eat too much, or you know, whatever um which is was valuable and I'm grateful for it and I wish I had known then what you're speaking of now.
Speaker 2:Because there's, there is a way to to go to scripture and to stay in that. You know, like I'm trying to think of a passage I used to used to go to, kind of a go-to passage in moments of fear. But let's just take, you know, jesus's words. Behold, I'm with you always, even the end of the age. So there is a, there's a way that I can go to those words of Jesus and say just kind of over and over and over in my head you know, I'm with you always, even in the age, I'm with you always, even in the age, and stay in that kind of like still breathing from way up here and so my brain's just kind of whirling.
Speaker 2:Valuable even so, but how much more valuable when I am inviting my body to practice with my brain. So sorry, my brain is part of my body, but these different parts of my body, my brain and my lungs, to practice together. What does it mean if I am in, if Jesus is with me always, even to the end of the age? Well, it means I can breathe, I can slow down, and so I'm inviting my lungs, in a way, into that exercise, I'm inviting my, and then that helps my brain to enter more deeply into that exercise. So I said, man, I think the implications here are really significant in a lot of ways, and that's one that kind of pops for me.
Speaker 1:Some of these are what the reformers called. Was it common grace? What Catholics might call yeah, something like grace and nature? I don't know all the terms, but these are doable for, obviously, your non-Christian friends. So you could be walking with someone through a really difficult situation. You can invite them to take some deep breaths with you and maybe you're silently praying for them.
Speaker 1:These aren't mutually exclusive guys. We don't need to pit the fact that you know certain Eastern religions might you know, spiritualize breath work, not in a Christian way against the fact that God's the one who gave us this breath and we can do it with him. So we got to keep moving, Josh, but probably a lot more that could be said about that. So fundamental. You have less than 25 minutes to be able. Probably most of us like five minutes or maybe three minutes without breathing. We're toast. So we need breath. We also need hydration, we need water.
Speaker 1:I mean, I just think, um, of the miracle I was reading it last night of elisha, uh, basically creating. The armies of israel and judah were about to die of dehydration and they go uh, the, the king of Judah, is a God-fearing man. He's like is there any prophet of the Lord? They find Elisha. He prays. It's actually kind of interesting. He has a harp played for him and then it says, after the harp begins being played, the spirit of the Lord came on Elisha and he basically prays and pools of water just come. They come from Edom area into the valley that the army's in. So the people of God needed water, or else they were literally going to die, and instead of God just kind of doing some sort of um, he could have done perhaps a spiritual miracle where let's just say, somehow their body just keeps being filled with water. I don't know, Somehow their body just keeps being filled with water. I don't know. He could have done something like that. But for whatever reason, God loves matter, Matter matters to God, as we often say at Reach In, and probably others have said, and God creates basically a river for them. He creates something physical for them to engage. I actually just a couple things that I'll say and hear your thoughts on.
Speaker 1:Josh, One of my pastors, has told me that his afternoon slump is negated in part by drinking enough water. So hydration can actually be a part of having your body function well with energy. One other one that I found so important with hydration is that I'm one of the very few people in this world who's had the issue of over-hydrating. What this means is that I'm one of the very few people in this world who's had the issue of overhydrating. What this means is that I was told you got to drink plenty of water. You got to drink plenty of water. Once you're thirsty, you're way past the point of you know. I've just been sensationalized for some reason in my thinking with water, so I've drank way too much water.
Speaker 1:And when I began this is so interesting when I began my recovery from sexual sin, I started to have really difficult tension, headaches and sleepless nights, I would call it where my heart would basically be racing. It felt like it was beating so hard and part of that was I'm now not medicating anxiety and I have to now face anxiety, become mature to handle anxiety. I was getting counseling, inner healing prayer. There was a lot of ways that I was getting after the anxiety. One of the really amazing things I noticed was, because I would drink so much water, I was actually depleting myself of electrolytes. There are like five major electrolytes sodium, so salt, basically potassium, magnesium, calcium. Those are at least the four that I'm aware of. There's at least one more.
Speaker 1:But by not having enough salt or perhaps some of the potassium or magnesium, the tension headaches would form because my muscles didn't have the stuff they needed to communicate and the beating heart thing would happen at night. Stuff they needed to communicate and the beating heart thing would happen at night. But the moment I got up and created a electrolyte mix in this case it was like an emergency which is a vitamin C, you know powder, but it has a lot of salt, because they know if you're sick and you're drinking a lot of water, you actually need salt to absorb the water. And so if I would get up it was so annoying because I'm like I brushed my teeth, I don't want to drink this sugary powder mix, right, but if I would get up, go upstairs, make the emergency or liquid IVs of brand noon we're not sponsored by any of these brands, but these are some of the ones I've used If I go up and do that, within 10 to 15 minutes my heart was beating normally and I could go to sleep. My heart was beating normally and I could go to sleep.
Speaker 1:So there was a literal physical thing going on in my body connected to anxiety, but not exclusively anxiety.
Speaker 1:That was handled by getting the nutrients I needed. So I've since learned to drink a little less water. If you ever watch us live or the recording on YouTube, you will see me probably grab my water a fair bit as my throat dries out while I'm talking. But I've actually had to grab my water a fair bit as my throat dries out while I'm talking. But I've actually had to cut down water a little bit and have a more balanced intake of electrolytes so that some of my body's needs are being met. So what I'm trying to say is, if you're dealing with recovery and your body now has a higher level of stress, maybe cortisol is running through your body more, your muscles are more tensed out, you might actually be burning through electrolytes more, and one of the ways you can actually care for your body and again a God-ordained way is to get the nutrients you need through hydration. I know it's kind of wild, but it's like this has actually been really important to my recovery journey and just walking as a person.
Speaker 2:That's a bit so this. So this was one of the ones that, as I'm kind of like taking a peek at your notes beforehand, and I see hydration as this discipline, this physical discipline to help in recovery, that I was like. I do not know what he's talking about, but I know and I would say, and I'm I'm way out of my league here. So I'm so glad you're leading this conversation because I, I'm a coffee drinker. I don't know, I'm not, I'm not crazy over the top compared to many, and I can actually. I mean, like you know, the last couple of days I've had, you know, uh, one cup and I don't really notice much of a difference. So it's. But, uh, the caffeine and coffee dehydrates and I don't typically drink enough water, I'm aware of that. So you had the experience where literally making sure that you have the right amount of hydration without overhydrating, and for our listeners it probably is worth just reiterating that nine times out of ten, your issue will be that you're not drinking enough water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, which may be the exception over there. Yeah, that actually helps with an element of emotional regulation. Yes, my experience would be. Certainly I know that too much coffee, yeah, disregulates me and can create a lot of. I can feel more anxious, I can feel more angry, more irritable If I'm not watching how quickly I'm drinking coffee or how I'm consuming coffee. But I've got much less experience recognizing, like, the value of water, unless I'm playing sports or out in the sun or something that I might recognize the difference.
Speaker 1:But part of what I'm getting at I mean, I forgot to mention three days is how long you could probably survive without water, so that's just kind of a fun factor. But we're learning how to care for our bodies and again, this is a big part of what recovery is is I don't know how to care for my emotions, but I also don't know how to care for my body, and so if I'm using masturbation, which I used to, to calm my body down from all the anxiety it's holding in, there's actually healthy ways that God has designed us to function. One one really notable person I've heard talk about this is Harvard professor Arthur Brooks. He's a Catholic Christian, loves the Lord and he talks about, he teaches his students about happiness, and every day he wakes up and actually has electrolytes. I don't know which one he uses, like you know, because that costs a lot.
Speaker 1:Each of these little tablets, you know, might be 50 cents or a dollar, but um, but he's recognized and I wish he explained it more in the interview I heard but he's recognized that his body maybe he's in his fifties, maybe he does deal with a lot of stress, I don't know but his body needs those electrolytes to function well when he goes to the gym, right when he wakes up and then goes through his day. So it's just interesting to recognize I think this is coming more to the fore in this generation Like, oh, do you have a liquid IV with you? Did you drink a Noon, did you? You know, recognizing that we're sweating out nutrients and we actually need to replenish them.
Speaker 2:So if I could let me take this in a little bit of a different direction, being the novice that I am at being well hydrated through the course of the day, one of the things that really appeals to me about what you're saying is that you're talking about caring well for ourselves, caring well for our bodies as a part of recovery, and I think anybody who's been in recovery or who's engaged in unwanted sexual behaviors for long will recognize their tendencies towards using their bodies to get a fix, to feel better fast and oftentimes unwanted. Sexual behaviors is just one of a number, kind of in a constellation of behaviors that a person would use to dissociate from their feelings, to feel better, quick, to help themselves calm down, to help themselves wake up. I mean those kinds of ways and, whether they're recognizing or not, they're trying to manipulate their body to help with their emotions. And, by the way, like one helpful, maybe framework for this conversation would be that when we're talking about emotions, we're not talking about something separate from our bodies. We actually feel all of our emotions bodily. That was one of those other things for me. Yeah, just, you know, five years ago or so, I was like wait a minute, those are the same thing, like when I'm talking about emotions, I'm talking about my body. But so, whether it's caffeine or media, or food, or sugar or alcohol or soda, I mean these are all ways that we're trying to use our bodies.
Speaker 2:What you're talking about, james, is caring for our bodies, helpingame, because for many of us, as we're trying to let go of the temptation or resist the temptation to act out sexually, it feels on the front end like what we're trying to do is deprive our bodies of something, as though we're hurting them. And we can feel pain when we say no to temptation, whether it's temptation to overeat or sugar or alcohol or drugs or sexual acting out. But what we're really trying to do is we are trying to care well for ourselves, and I think that frames up kind of this idea with the Lord. The Lord is not trying to hold out on you, he's not trying to deprive you of something. He's actually trying to give you life and give it to you abundantly, and so even the on a physical level, drinking adequate amounts of water in a day is a way for you to cooperate with the lord's care for you.
Speaker 1:One way one of the speakers used to work with yeah, absolutely, pat goodman, who has spoken with our team before. He's a local men's minister in the Baltimore area. He would always bring a plank of a two by four with him to any you know teaching. He does at least a few that I've heard. But he would show that if you, you know, go against the grain, you will get splinters, but if you go with the grain, you won't. And his point was God has designed a grain of the universe like if we don't cooperate, if we don't drink water enough water in three days, we're done potentially. And so what we're saying, like what you're highlighting, josh, is that caring for our bodies is actually a really important thing. That isn't. This is not about like selfishness, and I do recognize, I want to recognize, that there are people around the world who are not getting enough of these categories, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be if we can, and we wouldn't want them to if they could. In other words, one of the fruits of the spirit, the last fruit of the spirit, actually, is self control. And I want to argue, josh, that what we're talking about today is growing in self-control.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about diet in just a second. And obviously fasting is a spiritual discipline, but it's again. We need to know what is healthy so that then we can adequately choose to make exceptions to the rule. We need to know the rules to make exceptions to the rules as well, right. So if you're going to choose to fast, if you want to do one of those incredible Jesus fasts the 40-day fast I know people who have actually done that from food, water only for 40 days If you want to do something like that, you need to know what healthy well, healthy fasting. In that case you got to be very careful. There's guidelines to that you should look up if you're ever going to consider that. But you need to know what healthy looks like in order to make exceptions effective exceptions.
Speaker 2:Man James, this is so helpful because I still kind of tend to think about disciplines and about virtue and I'm saying this confessionally, but I can hear it in what you're talking about as being primarily about being able to say no rather than say yes. And what's popping for me, as you're saying, that is, self-control can also be practiced in giving your body what your body needs. Growing in humility can be giving your body what your body needs. Growing in humility can be giving your body what your body needs. And so, instead of me like, go over here. Like you know, master of the universe, like you know, give me enough coffee, I'll get through the day, I'll power through. Like, let me, let me be humble. God, I'm a created being who's created to need water. I will pause these different points in the day and have enough water as an act of humility and submission to my creator, and that is me walking in self-control. That's it. I mean that's enough for me. You finish the podcast by yourself. I'm going to go begin practicing this.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, and just like what. I just want to throw this in there. Just like we talked about, breathing is recognizing the spirit of God, the breath of God. Just like we talked about breathing is recognizing the spirit of God, the breath of God. Could drinking water be recognizing the river of life, the water that will never run out? How does Jesus say it to the woman at the well right the?
Speaker 2:living water that will satisfy yeah.
Speaker 1:The water that came out of his side, including the blood right, but the water, the water came out of his side as well when he was pierced on the cross. So no reason. We can't let these things be icons, and maybe that's what they were designed to be, josh, we talked so much about how sex is an icon to the wedding supper of the lamb. It's this foretaste of what it'll be like to be united with God. How much more could be? Or how much could also breathing drinking water we're going to talk about eating, or some of these others in a moment. They can be icons for us if we would let them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our bodies are not just biological, as Christopher West says, they are also theological, and so, like we drink water, it's a theology. We are designed for the river of life, we are designed for the springs of water that well up that we will never thirst for again. And if we can fast with the words of the prayer that, lord, I'm hungry for you, Can't we drink some water and say, lord, I'm thirsty for you, I want the eternal water that will never run dry, man. So, friends, please join us again next week. We're going to continue this conversation, but before we sign off, james and I want to personally invite you to the retreats that Regeneration's offering this fall. We've got one for men and one for women. They're both transformational. For the men, we have our second annual Awaken retreat.
Speaker 2:If you came last year, you know how wonderful it was. If you came last year, the content this year will be a little bit different. We're going to be two nights, october 3rd through the 5th, unforgettable weekend, where you're going to experience being known and being named through brotherhood, the Father's heart and embodied healing experiences. If you're a woman, we'd like to invite you to the Sacred by Design retreat. I say invite you, we're not going to be there, but the women on our team will be there. Happening November 7th and 8th. It's a unique space for women to slow down, connect deeply with God and rediscover the beauty of who they are, beyond shame, beyond striving. It's a weekend of truth, grace and restoration. Space is limited for both of these. You can find out more about them in our show notes Until next week. Thanks,
.png)
