The Secret to Longevity?

Unless we know exactly what the big picture is for our healthcare, we may not summon the discipline to fully apply ourselves to the cause of choosing health foods and stick to other health-giving practices.

When the conversation turns to what we put in our bodies, I have often heard someone argue, "I won’t live forever. I will die of something anyway. I won't let anybody judge me or make me feel guilty about what or how I eat. Are you the Food Police or what?”

I used to be like the person spewing these arguments: "I will eat whatever I want. I will smoke whenever I want, however long I want, since I will die of something anyway, regardless of what I put in my body."

Like saying, "I will die anyway, so why shouldn't I add aches, pains, migraine, diabetes, high blood pressure, athritis, heart disease, and cancer, as the signs and messengers of oncoming death?" It's like saying, "I'm on my way to dying, so let me look the part!"

Here is what got me to change from that way of thinking: Healthy living is less about longevity and more about quality of life . Since I don't have that long to live on this earth, I want my life here to be pain-free and disease-free if I can help make it so.

Biblical health is not so much about living long but about living strong . It is not about how long I live but how well I live.

Jesus Christ gave us an excellent example in that regard. He lived just 33 years on earth, but He was in great health right up to when He was murdered. Only a healthy-body Jesus could have sustained the gruesome beatings, the torment, the torture that came with being crucified at the hands of Roman soldiers.

I take action to live life in a healthy body not to achieve longevity ... blessed are you if long life is your portion. My aim for healthy living is to temper brevity of life with quality of life, and certain parts of the Bible keep me mindful of this.

• Job 14:1 , Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble .
  
  

Why should I add any more "trouble" (pain and sickness) to my "few days"?

• Psalm 90:10,12 , The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom .
  
  

It is precisely because life is short that the Bible invites us to gain a heart of wisdom, applying the wisdom of God’s Word to personal healthcare. No level of healthcare from my employer or from the government can bail me out if I neglect to provide for my body the primary care of healthy nutrition for quality of life.

Added to how brief life is the uncertainty of life, the reality that I may die suddenly, be it from an accident, from a natural or man-made disaster, or from a myriad of other possible causes of death. Because I can face sudden death anyday, why shouldn't I rule out food-related disease (diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or cancer) as a possible cause of premature death?

I too would like to crack the code to being a centenarian. Though I'm pretty sure that healthy nutrition may be part of the longevity secret, I won't regret not living to be 100 years, if every year I live is mostly pain-free, disease-free, prescription-drug-free, pill-free, surgery-free.

Subtract all the time that moments of illness may rob me of, I actually get to use some of that "sick time" (which can be months or years over a lifetime) for the better things in life. That's the highest goal which motivates me to drive past fast-food restaurants, head for the salad bar, ignore vending machines of junk snacks and drinks, in hot pursuit of healthier alternatives.

What's your healthcare goal? Do you have one?