World Health

Every year, the World Health Organisation has a special campaign day: World Health Day. This year, on April 7th they will draw attention to the millions of people worldwide who have limited access (or even no access at all) to life saving health care.

Caring for the sick and injured is a noble calling and we particularly admire the doctors and nurses who ease suffering, under adverse conditions, in poor or war-torn countries. There’s no denying that they make the world a better place than it would otherwise be.

Yet even in rich countries, health is an elusive goal. The World Health Organisation’s definition of health is: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

How many people in the UK can say that this describes their life? When you look around, you find that 36% or more of UK adults are clinically obese. A fifth of men (19.5%) and a third of women (33.7%) have a diagnosed mental health condition at some point in their life.  Despite our physicians’ best efforts, with even the most expensive healthcare and drugs, can only buy perhaps a handful of extra years, if we are lucky. Eventually, 100% of us will die.

However, April is also when Christians all over the world celebrate Easter. It marks what you might call “God’s World Health Day” when his son Jesus died and was raised to life again as the most important milestone in his plan to restore perfect health to the world. Not only will people have complete physical, mental and social well-being but disease, infirmity and even death will be a thing of the past.

If you would like to know more about God’s “health plan”, why not come along to Bible Hour any Sunday morning.  It’s genuinely the only solution to world health.

Useful passage to look up: Isaiah ch40 vs28-31

Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash