The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 2:7 (NIV)

To embody something is to give it life. In Genesis, God breathes life into the inert human creation and it is filled with life force energy, the “breath of life.” The human has become a “being” because it is now alive with spiritual energy.  This understanding has important ramifications for how we view our bodies and for how we heal.

As physical beings we are dependent on our senses for interpreting the world. We process and relate to our environment by seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, and touching it.  This means that we internalize our perceptions about everything from this standpoint, including God and ourselves.  Although we may understand on some level that we are more than our physical selves, we cannot see our emotions, our spirit, or God, so they are less real.  This idea of “not real” also translates into “less important”, so the emotional and spiritual sides of us are often discounted, dismissed, or ignored. When this perception becomes fixed, it allows us to feel separate from those aspects of self, and from God.

What this means, is that the image of God we embody within ourselves is often very small, constricted, and one-dimensional.  The magnificence of God becomes the pettiness of God and we construct a humanized vision of God that reflects only our own insecurities and limitations. That small view of God translates into an even smaller view of our ability to heal. By limiting who God can “be” we restrict our innate capacity for wholeness. But, if wholeness is our natural state, then healing is a natural process.  We are “fully equipped” for our life in this world and that implies that everything we need for wholeness we already possess. [1] This means that our bodies are programmed to heal. How? The life force energy that enlivened us at creation is still present and the Gospel stories show us how to use it to heal. Jesus was an amazing energy healer! So what’s the problem?  We have forgotten who we are and we no longer hear the voice of Spirit within our bodies.