Being healthy to maintain spiritual health.

The outward circumstances of Helen Roseveare’s life may be different
from that of many of us, but her inner battles were the same. And
as we all know, our inner battles don’t stay inside. They spill out and
injure innocent bystanders, usually the people that we care about the
most.

The joy and excitement of the first three years suddenly seemed
to drain away. . . . Work began to get on top of me; unhappiness,
loneliness, fear, inferiority, all began to be acutely present.
At the same time Bible study and prayer became perfunctory
instead of joyous. . . . Witness continued, but with no real faith
or expectation of seeing results. Looking back it is easy to real-
ize that at least part of the explanation lies in the fact that, like
many of my fellow medical students, I was suffering from overwork
and strain resulting from a very full programme. . . . I . . .
thought this exhaustion meant spiritual failure.277

That is a good lesson for us to remember. Inasmuch as we have a
choice, we need to make good choices about sleeping and eating and
other things that affect our health, so that we don’t open ourselves to
sin that undermines our spiritual well-being.
And from the other side, we need to work hard to keep our connection
with God strong, through his Word and our prayer, so that we
have the perception to see when we are sliding into bad attitudes and
the likelihood of glossing over and justifying sin in our lives.

God often uses other people to drag us back when we’ve slidden
into the sins that flourish in spiritual dryness. We see this happen in
Helen’s life. It’s a humbling thing to have other people point out our
weaknesses, our sins. My inclination is to justify myself, thinking they
just don’t know all the factors that made me do or speak as I did.

_Noel Piper on Helen Rosevere
"Faithful women and their Extraordinary God"