Hi, I'm a new follower just starting out on my fitness journey. I'm a health coach by profession and I've always been interested in Yoga but I've always been told Christians shouldn't do it? What are your thoughts? Great blog by the way!
It’s awesome that you’re starting to get fit and healthy, i wish you all the best on your journey!!
I’ve also heard that yoga and christianity don’t mesh well together, but i’ve never been the kind of person to decide what i can and can’t do in my life, nor will i ever let anyone manipulate my core beliefs and values!!
I don’t consider myself to be ‘religious’ in the sense that i don’t follow all of the ‘rules’ that mankind has imparted onto christianity. Instead, i believe in a God who has emotions like we do, a God who loves us, is rooting for us, and just wants to be a part of our life and our journey on earth! I believe that our spirits connect with God’s spirit, and that individual people do this in their own, unique, and very special way. I also believe that we all have gifts and talents which God has purposefully given to us, in order that we might glorify him through them. For me, i love being active and physical, i’ve been blessed with a strong, flexible body and a dedicated determination when it comes to health and fitness. So, i want to use that to glorify God!
For me, yoga is a huge part of this. Not only am i bettering my physical body through my practice, but i’m glorifying God through my body, thanking him for creating me in the wonderful way that he did, praising him for sustaining me, for healing me, for strengthening me and comforting my soul. I meet with God when i welcome him into my day, and the easiest way for me to welcome him into my day is to get on my mat, play some worship music, thank God for the sunrise and do some yoga :)
that’s what yoga is for me, and i know that yoga is traditionally very different from how i use it, but i also believe that yoga in itself is so unique to the individual practicing it that it’d be wrong to force any framework or traditional purpose for it onto anyone’s practice! Let people do them, and you do you, we all have different beliefs and practices and i believe, as a christian, as long as God is at the centre of your actions and you do everything to glorify him, he will bless that :) xxx