Stormie Omartian - Greater Health Gods Way: Seven Steps to Inner and Outer Beauty

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version, Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission.

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Cover by Paz Design Group, Salem, Oregon

Cover photo David Stoecklein/The Stock Market Photo Agency 1999

GREATER HEALTH GODS WAY

Copyright 1996 by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Omartian, Stormie.
Greater health Gods way: seven steps to health, youthfulness,
and vitality / Srormie Omartian.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
Originally published: Chatsworth, California: The Sparrow Corporation, 1984.
ISBN 1-56507-444-0 (Mass)
ISBN 0-7369-0061-6 (Trade)
1. HealthReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. HealthPopular works.
I. Title.
BT732.058 1996

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 / BC / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Chapter 6 Step Six:
Periods of Fresh Air and Sunlight

This book is dedicated to Diane Kendrick, my wonderful friend and secretary, for whose loving and unwavering support and assistance I am eternally grateful. I also offer special thanks to my husband, Michael, for his encouragement and willingness to give so much of himself to me and our children in order that this book could be completed.

How do you write a book about health so that it doesnt overemphasize the physical side of things and neglect the spiritual? How do you keep it from encouraging people to take themselves too seriously? How do you keep it from becoming just another collection of personal opinions?

The answer is that you begin by seeking the Lord with all your heart, and you pray continuously for guidance and wisdom and revelation. You pray for all the doors to shut on your ideas if they are not what the Lord intends. You pray for every person who hears or reads your words to be opened to what they need to know. You pray to bring life where there might be death.

My most important goal in writing this book is to convince you that Gods ways are good. In fact, they are more than good. They are perfect. We experience needless pain and misery only because we do not follow His ways.

I sincerely hope that this book will whet your appetite for more knowledge and that you will want to study further on your own. At the end of this book you will find a list of books that I recommend for further reading. I have read hundreds of books on the subject of health over the last fifteen years. Many were good in some areas but poor in others, or their spiritual leanings were such that I could never recommend them. However, all the books I have recommended here are excellent and I encourage you to read as many of them as you can. They are consistent and solid in their overall perspective, but they do not always agree with each other on minor points. You may find that you dont agree with them on every point. Thats fineall of us may have our own opinions, each for very good reasons. Some things we can know for certain, but other things must be left to individual preference. You will need to judge each book for yourself.

Remember that this book is not a compendium of medical advice, but rather an aid to help you achieve and maintain good health. If you are sick, allow God and a doctor to help you get well. You can read this book while you are recovering and decide how you are going to change your ways.

Introduction to
The Seven Steps

When we say that everyone wants to be youthful we dont mean that if you are forty you want to look twenty, or if you are twenty you want to look ten. But if you are forty you dont want to look fifty. There is nothing wrong with being fifty and looking fifty when you are fifty. What is wrong, is being fifty and looking and feeling sixty-five. In other words, we dont want to be prematurely old. Looking old means looking older than you really are.

Every age is good. Every age has something wonderful and special about it that no other age has. Dont ever dread getting older. At any birthday you can be healthy, youthful, attractive, and alive. Its premature aging that should be unacceptable to you because premature aging is a sign that something is out of balance in your life. You may suffer under too much stress; too little exercise; a poor diet; sleepless nights; insufficient water, fresh air, sunshine, or fasting. The result will be a buildup of toxic wastes in your body that accelerates the aging process.

Because every age has its advantages, we dont want to go into our later years too decayed, decrepit, and diseased to enjoy them. To have a long and fulfilling life requires good health and an abundance of love, peace, and joy. We want to finish our lives as strong, vital, ministering people who bring good news and blessings to others. We want to be constructive, productive, contributing people. We want to be healthy, youthful, attractive, and alive, not sickly, old, repulsive, and half-dead.

Ask anyone who is sick and dying a miserable slow death how they would rather have spent their final years. They will say, I wish I had known years ago the right way to live. Or if they have heard of the right way to live, they will say, I wish I had listened.

Sophia, the week before she died of the cancer that had ravaged her entire body, told me, I regret that I did not learn to forgive and release all things to God. Years of unforgiveness took its toll on Sophia and she was dead at age fifty.

Mary, after being healed of cancer of the lungs, throat, and mouth, continued against her doctors orders to smoke, drink, and eat the way she always had. She died a very painful and sad death. She refused to follow what she knew to be the right way to live.

Max, after years of living his own wayeating junk food and being overweight, undernourished, overworked, and underexerciseddecided one day that the following week he would begin a healthful diet-and-exercise program. Unfortunately, the decision came too late. The next morning he was dead of a heart attack at age forty. He had waited too long.

Ricky, a young man who practically lived on candy bars, cakes, cookies, and sodas as a regular diet, contracted leukemia. Because of the way he had fed his body, he had no resistance to help the doctors in the fight to save his life. He was dead at age twenty-five.

These are all extreme examples that began simply as premature aging. I knew all of these people personally and I watched them die needless premature deaths because either they werent sufficiently acquainted with Gods ways or they were aware of His ways and refused to follow them.

People who live in tune with Gods ways and see them as good become healthy, youthful, attractive, and alive. Those who view their body as a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of God, and, accordingly, treat it with respect and care, are best able to adapt to Gods ways.