Health


The award pictured here was given to me in 2018 for the work I do as a police chaplain. Although it is a Spartan Warrior, it also depicts the armour talked about in the New Testament of the bible. This award is handed out by a secular organization called Badge of Life Canada and their mission is to bring resources to first responders who struggle with mental health issues, usually related to work.

In the world we live in most people accept that there is a need to maintain good physical health and today more than ever, good mental health. When you look at wellness programs within policing and pretty well any organization, these two aspects of "health" take priority. For some reason most want to overlook a third area of health: spiritual.

More specifically for me it is the Christian faith that centres on a relationship with Jesus. We just celebrated Christmas and believe it or not, it is a reminder that Jesus Christ was born to bring healing to hurting people. He came to fix the brokenhearted and to mend our souls which good physical and mental health can't accomplish. As we say: Jesus changes us from the inside out while all the others try to do it from the outside, in. Drugs, alcohol and even going to gym religiously are all attempts to fix our problems but what about our soul?

As we head into this New Year my hope is that many of you will consider this often forgotten part of the human being. To make it a bit easier to do in the comfort of your own home, I suggest watching the ALPHA Film series on YouTube. Watch it by yourself or with friends and family. It includes several episodes with each talk less than 30 minutes. "Is There More To Life Than This?" is the title of the first talk. This has been around for 25 years and when I was pastoring we showed it at our church many times. I even ran the course in Estonia while living there. Churches of all denominations, all over the world, run ALPHA regularly. At these regular courses we would break into small groups and discuss what we heard and people were free to express their opinions. We had atheists attend and we had those whose parents or grandparents might have attended church but they never had. If you can watch hours upon hours of Netflix surely you can take some time to feed your soul. Any questions, feel free to contact me. Be blessed and have a wonderful New Year.

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