What Are You Building On?

We’ve all heard the saying, “Your body is a temple”

But the question you must ask yourself is…

“What foundation am I building my temple on?”

I really liked a metaphor that was discussed at my church today talking about this exact topic.

We’re going to go religious mode for a moment here, and then zoom back out and discuss what’s being said through a meta-perspective.

Christ said, “He who hears my teachings and does them is like a wise man who built his house upon a rock. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house; but it did not fall, for it was founded upon a ROCK."

Christ then followed that up with, "And everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does them not, shall be likened to a foolish man, who built his house upon SAND. The rains descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

Let’s unpack that, shall we?

When we interpret the Bible we’re supposed to look at it from a spiritual point of view, not a material point of view…

A material point of view asks the question, “What’s it made of?”

But a spiritual point of view asks the question, “What does it mean?”

So if we were to look at Christ in the material sense, we look at him as the man who was crucified and what Christianity is based on.

If we look at Christ from a spiritual point of view, we look at him as an archetypal figure to symbolize purity.

So when Christ says, “He who hears my teachings…”

We should look at that from a spiritual point of view, and understand this means following a life of purity.

And the concept which is expanded upon from there is those who follow a life of purity will have stability in their life through all different types of chaos and tragedy.

Those who do not follow a life of purity will have instability and their house (your temple i.e. mind, body, soul) will fall.

In other words, life’s gonna suck.

And this completely checks out from my own experience.

I had a pretty bad habit of smoking a lot of weed, and even at the time, I knew this wasn’t following a life of purity.

How do I know?

Why is there a dispensary on every corner like McDonald’s?

Doesn’t American culture, which advocates for Marijuana, have a tendency to promote activities based on impurity?

Do you smoke because you want to “chill”? Or were you like me using that as an excuse to use a drug as a crutch to manage stress?

We can come up with whatever justifications we like, but in my current world view, I view smoking as being an impure action.

When I was smoking consistently, I was an emotional wreck, and I’m already a pretty emotional guy…

So having a brain filled with THC basically 10x’d my reactivity and neuroticism.

When something bad would happen, it would practically ruin my whole day, I wouldn’t be able to control the whirlwind of my emotions.

But since I got sober, several very significant and difficult things have happened, and I found myself responding instead of reacting.

I was able to control my emotions and keep my mental sanity without ruining my whole day.

So if we want to view all of this from a scientific point of view, could it be that impure actions harm our neurochemistry which increases neuroticism and instability?

Maybe this is what Christ was explaining from a spiritual perspective?

Isn’t our spirit connected to our mind?

I think there’s an argument to be made there and would encourage you to explore this topic with your own vices.

Are your actions building upon rock, which is more difficult in the short term but more stable in the long term?

Or are you building your house on sand because it’s easy and expedient?

If your body is your temple, wouldn’t you want it to have a stable foundation?