This week I am honored to host a guest blog by Katherine Pasour. I know her through the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. Katherine is a great writer who encourages others in their writing journeys. She recently published the book "Honoring God with My Body: Journey to Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle." I appreciate her desire to connect taking care of our bodies as a way to honor God, and am excited about her words. I pray her blog below will challenge you to find new ways to create healthy habits. I'm also doing a give-away of her book where I will have a drawing for any new subscribers to my blog. I will announce the winner on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. Enjoy her article!

I am blessed.
 
Two amazing little people call me Grammy and I have the privilege of caring for these wonderful gifts from God three days a week. Their mother usually has leftovers in the refrigerator for my lunch. Recently, she had a bowl of slaw covered with a stretchy lid and I dipped some out before attempting to put the cover back on the bowl.
 
After numerous attempts and much grumbling, I admitted complete lack of success. The plastic cover stretched over the bowl without too much difficulty. But after a second or two, the lid always popped off. After a dozen attempts, I accepted defeat.
 
My options?

• Persist—I could keep trying, even in the face of failure and frustration.
• Adapt—Try a different solution to the problem.
• Give up—Declare the task impossible, pour the remaining slaw into the trash, and stash the pesky cover in a secret hiding place—never to be seen again.

 
Life presents us with challenges on a daily basis. If we find a task extremely difficult, our options may be similar to what I faced with the bowl of slaw—Persist in trying only one way—Adapt our strategy and find a different way to complete the challenge—or decide the task isn’t worth doing and give up.
 
What about the challenge of making healthy lifestyle choices?
 
Below are five suggestions for your consideration. These actions can lead to a healthier lifestyle, but first an answer to the obvious question:
 
Why bother to seek a healthier lifestyle?
 
Achieving a healthy lifestyle, which includes daily physical activity and healthy nutrition, provides significant benefits:

• A stronger and healthier heart
• Stronger muscles and bones
• Reduced risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer
• Reduced risk of high blood pressure and cholesterol
• Helps maintain a healthy weight
• Strengthens immune system
• We live longer with a better quality of life

 
But achieving a healthy lifestyle isn’t always easy. We don’t always have the information we need to make healthy choices. Fast foods and unhealthy snacks tempt us. We may have a sedentary job and limited options for exercise opportunities. Perhaps we indulge in unhealthy eating habits that are difficult to eliminate.
 
So…let’s take a look at those suggestions for a healthier lifestyle.
 
Five actions for a healthier you:

1. Eat five serving of fruits and vegetable each day, prepared in a healthy way (i.e. eaten fresh whenever possible, not fried, avoid adding sugar or fat).
2. As much as possible, avoid fried foods, fast foods, and sweets. Sugar causes inflammation in many parts of our bodies. Fast food and fried foods are full of calories and sodium. Healthier choices for snacks? Fresh fruit, nuts (in small quantities) and fresh veggie sticks.
3. Drink more water and reduce consumption of sugary beverages.
4. Be sure to include fiber in your meals: whole grain bread or cereal; oatmeal; fresh fruits and vegetables; beans and legumes.
5. Move more—take time each day for activity. If regular physical activity is part of your schedule—awesome! If you’re currently mostly sedentary, here are some ways to add activity:

• Add some walking time each day. Start with five minutes a day and gradually increase by five minutes per week. Work toward at least 30 minutes per day. Walking treks don’t have to be all at once, but can be broken into short increments throughout the day.
• Park further away from your destination, as safety allows, adding more steps to enter work, stores, church, or other locations.
• Take the longer walk indoors at work when going to a different location or at a store when shopping.
• If your physical condition and knees allow, use stairs instead of elevators or escalators.
• Move more at home—schedule walk or exercise breaks every hour.

Persist, adapt, and give up
 
In my situation with the bowl and frustrating cover, my solution was to find a different container and lid to store the slaw. I did some persisting, adapting, and giving up. I persisted in that I was determined to get the slaw back into the refrigerator. I adapted by finding another method. I gave up on the original plan and found a different way that worked.
 
Persist, adapt and give up (?) on your journey to a healthier lifestyle.

• Persist by setting achievable goals to move toward better health.
• Adapt by changing habits—substitute water for sodas or other sugary beverages; reduce the amount of fat, sugar, sodium, and fried foods you consume; walk or exercise more to receive the benefits.

 

• Usually I urge, “Never Give Up” and that certainly applies when striving to begin new, healthy habits. But we should give up behaviors that are detrimental to our health—Give up some of those things which are so unhealthy for us—sodas and sugary beverages; fried foods; processed meats (because of high fat and sodium content); and sitting for long hours without a movement break.

 
God gifted us with an amazing human body.
 
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 138:14-15, NIV)
 
We honor God when we take care of His gift.

• What habits do you think would be a good starting point for you to move towards greater health? 
• Who in your life can you find to help hold you accountable for these new choices so you don't give up?

Feel free to share comments below.

Have you ever considered getting an accountability partner, but had no idea what to discuss? This practical checklist covers physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial questions you can cover with your accountability partner during monthly meetings. It is not exhaustive, so feel free to add more. You know best which areas are struggles for you and where you need more encouragement.

If you meet with your accountability partner on a monthly basis, I suggest tackling no more than a few goals each month so you don’t get overwhelmed. Sometimes I chose one goal from each area, but other times I need to focus on a specific category more than others. That works. You drive where you need to grow so that you get the most from the experience.  

Physical Goals:                                                                                                   

• How are your exercise habits? What one area do you want to focus on over the next month? How can I hold you accountable?
  
• What types of activities would help you be more active—hiking, biking, joining a sports team?
  
• How are you eating habits? Is there any area of your diet that you want to improve?
  
• Are you getting enough water? Remember the body is primarily water. What practical steps can you take to drink more water?
  
• How are your sleeping habits? What can you do to give priority to getting good sleep? Do you need to give up TV, screen-time, wine, or exercise before bed?
  
• How do you deal with stress? Do you have a healthy outlet to release stress? Some people exercise, dance, color, or cry. Find something that works well for you.
  

Mental Goals:

• What things are you doing to challenge yourself to grow mentally?
  
• Are there any new languages you want to learn? What will you do to learn them?
  
• Are there any types of continuous education classes you want to take? Look into your local county or community college and see what they offer.
  
• How is your outlook on life? Are you glass half full or half empty? What can you do to see the world with a more positive perspective?  
  
• How do you find mental rest? Is it physical sleep, reading a good book, a crossword puzzle, or something else? What are you doing to pursue mental rest?
  

Emotional Goals:

• How are your family relationships? What can you do to be a better family member?
• How are your friendships? Are they helping you stir up love and good works in your life?
• How are your relationships with your coworkers? How can you help your colleagues?
  
• How can you seek ways to encourage your family members, friends, and associates?
  
• Is there anyone you are holding a grudge against? Remember that unforgiveness is like stabbing yourself and thinking the other person will bleed. Choose to forgive them and then work through the feelings.
  
• Do you journal? If so, how often? Is that something you would want to do as an outlet to sort through situations?
  
• What ways are you volunteering or otherwise giving back to your community?
  
• What other emotions are plaguing you—fear, anxiety, anger, hurt, etc.? How can you work through those emotions and find freedom and peace in Christ? Sometimes just talking about the issue can be cathartic.  
  

 
Spiritual Goals:

• Have you written a personal mission statement? If not, consider doing so.
  
• What do you believe God wants you to do?
  
• How is your Bible reading?
  
• How is your prayer life?
  
• Are you ensuring you get regular fellowship with other believers?  
  
• Do you keep a regular gratitude list?
  
• How are you actively seeking to grow in Christ?
  
• Are you praying for the gospel to spread and for God’s kingdom to come? What are you doing to make that happen?
  
• Do you have any sins or bad habits that you are struggling with? How can we bring them to light to help shrivel the enemy’s stronghold in that area? Seek verses that address that issue to replace lies with truth.
  
• What are you doing to pursue Biblical rest?
  

 
Financial Goals:

• How are your spending habits?
• Do you have debt? If so, what are you doing to pay down the debt?
• What are you doing to monitor your budget and use money wisely?
• Do you have any financial bad habits like gambling or binge shopping that are eroding your financial stability?
• Are you saving for emergencies? Are you planning for your near-term and long-term financial future?
  
• Are you tithing and giving generously with a cheerful heart?
  

What other things would you add? Please post your suggestions below. Thanks!

This week I had the opportunity to guest blog for Katy Kauffman's series "Sustaining Life's Victories." I share how Biblical accountability has grown my relationship with God and give practical tips for creating accountability in your own life.

Here's the article:

I had one sin that crippled me for years. I shoved it into the deepest corner of my heart so no one would know my shame. Satan used that guilt to keep me entrenched in sin. I remember sobbing by my bed, begging God to rid me of the pain. I didn’t know what to do. God showed me that surfacing sin is one of the surest ways to strangle its grip on my life. When I finally confessed it, the stronghold broke, releasing the sin’s hold on me.

First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (NKJV). From this verse, I knew that God had the ultimate power of forgiveness. However, even though I’d confessed my sin and been forgiven, I still didn’t feel like I was maintaining the victory.

Then I got an accountability partner. I discovered that beyond confessing our sins to God, real freedom can be found in confessing our sins to other believers. While Catholics have confessing to a priest ingrained into their culture, my Protestant background left out that aspect of Christian life. Nonetheless, the concept is very biblical. James 5:16 says, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (NKJV). This verse didn’t mean that I should start telling everyone everything that I’d done wrong. Instead, I read it as an instruction to confess my sins to a Christian friend who’d ask me hard questions about my thoughts and actions.

My Accountability Journey

Finding an accountability buddy brought someone alongside me in the fight against sin. God created Christian community not only for fellowship and fun, but to help encourage each other to lead godly lives, even when it’s hard. When I grew accountability in my life, my joy increased as sin lessened its power over me.

My accountability partner and I have met monthly for about ten years. We open with prayer and take turns giving our updates from the last month and praying about where He is leading us next. Besides confessing our sins to each other, God often provides direction and reveals wisdom to us during our discussions. Once, we felt God calling us to start a prayer group. My life was hectic, and I couldn’t figure out when to host it. I wound up convincing my Bible study to switch our regular study to a prayer night once a month.

Another insight God gave me during our talks was that all my time belonged to Him. I’d been struggling with how long it was taking me to reach certain life goals. I realized that if all my time belonged to God, He could use it however He wanted, and I’d never be late. God had also done a lot of preparation work in Joseph and Moses while they waited to fulfill their callings. My job was to seek God and trust His timing.

Ways to Create Accountability

Here are some general insights I learned about how to establish an accountability relationship:

1. Find someone trustworthy who believes in sound Biblical doctrine. You want someone who will hold you to the truths of God’s Word, not the standards of the world. 
2. Set up a meeting, and see how you relate. Start by sharing small things. Don’t feel required to spill your biggest secrets the first time you get together. Confidentiality is key. At first, I had my friend ask if I’d flossed regularly and waited to share heavier matters. If it doesn’t work out, keep looking. Ask God to help you find the right person.
   
3. Pray together. The second part of James 5:16 exhorts us to pray for one another after we confess our trespasses. Prayer strengthens our resolve through the Spirit to reject sin and walk in obedience to Christ.

With these thoughts in mind, if you are seeking to overcome sin and desire to hear God in new ways, consider finding an accountability partner. I can’t recommend it enough. The relationship is mutually beneficial and provides the Holy Spirit a new avenue of connection into your life to spur you into good works that will bless you and glorify God.

• Have you ever considered having an accountability partner? Why or why not?
• What are some areas of spiritual guidance you would want to pray through with another believer?
  
• Who do you think God might lead you to use as a trustworthy accountability partner?  Pray that God will help you find someone.