Radiant Living

Radiant
Health
H
ealth is a treasure. Of all our possessions
it is the most precious.
Wealth, learning, and honor are dearly
purchased at the loss of vigor and health.
None of these can secure happiness if
health is lacking.
It is possible to be as vital and alive at
61 as at 16. We can arise each morning
with renewed vigor and strength, bubbling
over with enthusiasm and energy.
We can enjoy each day to its fullest. This
is not done with a magic potion or some
will-o’-the-wisp fountain of youth, but
is possible through carefully applying
the simple basic principles that we will
be studying. As you come to understand
them more clearly, the challenge will
be to decide how to put them to work
effectively. Each discovery becomes a
key that opens a treasure chest full of the
riches of life.
Some people think that health is like a
game of chance—that “when your number
comes up” you will die. Others conceive
of length of life as preordained—
“when the finger of Fate points at you”
life is over. But science demonstrates, and
the Bible teaches, that no finger of Fate
points at us. If I contract lung cancer as
the result of smoking cigarettes I can’t
blame it on Fate—inhaling the 29-plus
poisons in cigarette smoke killed me. If
I indulge often in fat-rich foods, it’s FAT
not FATE that clogged my arteries.
We live in an orderly universe that is
subject to the law of cause and effect. If
you throw a stone off a cliff the law of
gravity will make it fall. If you stand in
the rain you will get wet. When the key
is turned in the ignition the car will start.
If it does not, there is a reason. This law
is also true of our health. It is sometimes
hard to see the cause and effect relationship
between the laws of health and the
consequences of disregarding them, simply
because the effects are not immediate.
But the day of reckoning will come. The
decisions and actions of today have a
serious impact on the future. Even smoking
two packs of cigarettes a day doesn’t
cause lung cancer or emphysema in one
week. Too often this lack of immediate
effects causes us to conclude that there
are no effects, and we end up living for
today at the expense of tomorrow.
The more scientific evidence that
comes in, the more indication there is
that we bring many of our diseases upon
ourselves. To a large degree sickness and
disease are caused by poor health habits.
2 s RADIANT LIVING