The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life

Your body is more spiritual than you think.

How can we preach a gospel of peace, yet still find our bodies wracked by anxiety? How do we call our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit, yet regard eating, exercise, or sleep as inherently "unspiritual" activities? How is it that modern Christians who claim God made their bodies have come to care so little about them?

Justin Whitmel Earley--bestselling author of The Common Rule and Habits of the Household--is intimately familiar with the consequences of ignoring the body. As a young lawyer, Earley collapsed into anxiety and insomnia that nearly ruined his life. In his journey back to mental and spiritual health, he realized that the healthy and unhealthy habits shaping his life weren't physical or spiritual; they were physical and spiritual.

The Body Teaches the Soul is a practical guide to the union of body and spirit in our overall health. With his characteristic vulnerability and story-driven approach, Earley shares personal failures, fascinating research, and biblical wisdom to reveal ten simple habits that will improve your health and deepen your relationship with God. In these pages, you will:

• Connect deeply and positively with your body as the image of God while avoiding the mistakes of ignoring or idolizing the body
• Explore how daily patterns of healthy eating can be as spiritual as fasting and how rhythms of feasting can become guilt-free celebrations of the world God made
• Recover your mental health through upper-brain spiritual truths that work together with lower-brain physical practices to reshape thought patterns
• Develop a sleep routine that honors your body's need for rest and your soul's need for sabbath
• Discover how to lament sickness and injury while still praying with hope for the miracle of healing
• Learn how exercise can create a humble lifestyle of loving others with your body instead of becoming a vain search for body image

Earley is not a health guru telling you how to get in shape; he is the ordinary Christian's guide to rediscovering the extraordinary gift of the body and the spiritual life that flows from it. Join this journey of wonder and well-being to reconnect with your whole self and repattern your whole life in the image of the God who made you and loves you as you are--body and soul.

Justin Whitmel Earley is a writer, speaker, and lawyer. He is the author of The Common Rule, Habits of the Household, and Made for People, though he spends most days running his business law practice. Through his writing and speaking, Justin empowers God's people to thrive through life-giving habits that form them in the love of God and neighbor. He continually explores both how physical habits are more spiritual than we think and how spiritual habits are more physical than we think. He lives with his wife and four boys in Richmond, Virginia, spends a lot of time around fires and porches with friends, and is a part-owner of a local gym. You can follow him online at justinwhitmelearley.com.