Christian Natural Health

Dr. Russell Witte is a Professor of Medical Imaging, Optical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona. Dr. Witte's Experimental Ultrasound and Neural Imaging Laboratory (EUNIL) devises cutting-edge imaging technology, integrating light, ultrasound and microwaves to diagnose and treat diseases ranging from tendinopathies and arrhythmias to breast cancer. By integrating different forms of energy, special effects are created that enable ultrasound imaging of optical absorption deep in tissue, mapping current source densities in the beating heart, and elasticity imaging of human muscle and tendon for quantifying tissue mechanical properties. Dr. Witte's research further extends into nanotechnology and smart contrast agents, which have applications to functional brain imaging, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Dr. Witte works closely with collaborators in the Colleges of Engineering, Optical Sciences and Medicine, as well as industry, to develop cutting-edge imaging technologies that potentially improve patient care. To find antennas in your area if you're in Tucson, see safetechtucson.com Dr Witte mentions Aman Jabbi - find a presentation on this subject by him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL_JQjjkOMY To contact Dr Witte: rwitte@protonmail.com Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

We all have disappointments in life - things our hearts were set on that just didn’t pan out. God does promise to give us the desires of our hearts if we’re following Him (Ps 37:4), but He doesn’t promise to give them to us on our time table, or through the avenues we choose.  His way is always best in the end, but that doesn’t make the immediate disappointments hurt any less.  Then there are those times when bad things happen to us that God had no part of.  These are the things that God specifically lists as a curse in the Old Testament - things like disease, death, destruction, destitution, and the like (Deuteronomy 28:15-38). They are listed as part of the curse of the law - but Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law, so God doesn’t do these things.  When these things happen now, it is because there is an enemy who “prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8-9), or because the world itself is fallen and waiting for redemption (Rom 8:20-22), or because of the free will of sinful people (Ps 37) - either our own or that of others who hurt us.  There are usually only a few ways that most people handle disappointments and sorrow: 1) they lie to themselves and pretend they never wanted (that thing) very much in the first place; 2) they run away, keeping themselves otherwise occupied so that they never feel the loss (and this includes addictions of all forms); 3) they get really mad, either at God or fate or whatever they blame; or 4) they grieve. The last one is the only path to true healing. Lying to Yourself (Denial) This is the “sour grapes” approach... “Well, fine, I never wanted it that much anyway!” It seems to work on the surface for awhile... the problem with this is simply that, well, it’s a lie.  Pretending you feel one way when in fact you feel another way entirely is suppression.  And the thing suppressed doesn’t go away... it gets buried deeper.  It’s like getting a splinter in your foot, and instead of having it removed, you shove it down inside the flesh so you can’t see it anymore, and just learn to walk with a limp.  This is often where emotional handicaps (such as depression) come from.  We are injured and isolated, and we don’t see that there’s anything we can do except learn to live with it - the “stiff upper lip” approach.  We move beyond blaming our needs to a denial of our needs.  There’s something we’re not admitting to ourselves, and the depression is a symptom of it. It’s trying to remind us that we need to enter the healing process. The solution, of course, is to submit to having your foot cut open so that the splinter can be extracted and the cut can heal.  Jesus says in Mark 8, If you try to preserve the things you want in life (by pretending everything is okay when it isn’t) then you will lose them.  But if you willingly lay them down for the sake of the Kingdom, then they'll be given to you.  As long as the splinter is still there, coping and “getting by” is the best you can ever do.  But that isn’t God’s best for you. In “The Law of Happiness,” Dr Henry Cloud writes, “...grief allows you to let go of what you cannot have in order to make room in your heart for what you can have.  Those who don’t feel safe enough to grieve find themselves holding on to lost hopes and relationships.  Then it’s difficult for them to seek out new attachments, since the ghosts of the past still occupy their emotional life”. Jesus promises that when we let go, the exchange he offers is beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3). Running Away (and Addictions) An addiction is anything that we run to in order to escape from unpleasant thoughts or emotions.  (That’s usually how all the physiologic addictions start, too.)  The obvious ones are substances, food, sex, gambling, shopping, and work (or busyness in general).  We can also be addicted to a person (that’s called codependence).  We can compulsively fill our lives with noise so that silence never has the opportunity to ask its uncomfortable questions.  We can park ourselves in front of the TV every night after work to escape from all the problems we don’t know how to solve.  Distraction techniques are very popular. These approaches all have one thing in common: they help us to avoid our pain, but they don’t heal it.  Because of that, they all enslave us sooner or later. But when Jesus first announced his ministry, he said it like this: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Isa 61:1-2).  He came to heal, not just to offer a band-aid. 

Dave Stetzer has been an electrician by training, education and experience for over 30 years. He joined the United States Air Force, attended electronics school at Keesler Air Force Base—at the time, the world’s #1 electronics school, and was given top-secret military clearance, as much of the electronic equipment he worked on was, and still remains, highly classified. In 1975, Dave founded Stetzer Electric, Inc, specializing in power control in industry, municipalities, and motor control centers, focusing his attention on power quality analysis and troubleshooting. This led to the founding of Stetzer Consulting, LLC and the development of the STETZERiZER (Graham-Stetzer) Filter and Microsurge Meter in conjunction with the late Professor Martin Graham. Dave has been an Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Member since 2000. For his extensive and exemplary work and research, Dave was nominated for, and now holds IEEE Senior Member status.  To learn more about Dave, see stetzerelectric.com Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

The scripture says a lot about seeking the Lord and getting wisdom from Him on the direction He wants you to go. But what about that most dreaded in-between stage, when you’re praying for wisdom and getting nothing, and no doors seem to be opening, and you feel unsettled - like you know your time in a particular circumstance or life stage is short, but you have not yet been released? In a word, what about waiting? The Fruit of the Spirit Patience is a fruit of the Spirit... but it comes as a result of a process. Paul lists the “fruit” that we bear when we’re walking with God’s spirit as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).  Peter gives a similar list, but he doesn’t call them fruit.  His list looks like this (2 Peter 1:5-7): Add to your faith, goodness.  This makes sense, because without faith we can’t even become God’s kids.  So you have to start with that - faith is the seed that produces the fruit of goodness.  In the Old Testament, God started by giving the Israelites the Law.  They didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing, but the Law produced “goodness” - meaning they weren’t killing each other and cheating on their spouses, and that sort of thing. And to goodness, knowledge.  God didn’t want them to stop there, though.  He wanted the Israelites to know Him, not just to obey a set of rules.  God wanted them to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).  Goodness therefore leads to knowledge - knowledge of the Lord. And to knowledge, self-control.  Now that we know what God asks us to do, and we know God himself, we need the ability to control ourselves in order to do what He is asking of us... but we don’t have the ability to control ourselves unless He gives it to us (remember Paul talking about how he used to continually do what he did not want to do, Rom 7:15-20? Instead, we get the fruit of self-control by getting to know the Holy Spirit (which is why Peter lists it after knowledge.)  So knowledge is the seed that produces the fruit of self-control. And to self-control, PERSEVERANCE.  We may have learned to subjugate the desires of the moment for the longer-term goal, but what happens when the longer-term goal looks REALLY far away, like it’s never going to happen?  That’s why we need perseverance.  The word implies a struggle: it’s suffering without quitting.  It’s hard, but we stick it out.  The writer of Hebrews says, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (10:36).  And to perseverance, godliness.  Notice that the corresponding fruit to perseverance is patience.  While the word perseverance implies a struggle, the word patience implies rest.  You’re not struggling anymore.  You know that God is going to come through.  Perseverance is the seed, and eventually it bears the fruit of patience.  Once you’ve got that, once you’re in rest, you become godly.  This was one of the key traits that set Jesus apart: when the storm blew up, while the rest of the disciples were freaking out, He was sleeping in the boat.  He’d said they were going to get to the other side, and He knew they were going to - he didn’t have to persevere through the storm anymore.  He was in rest.  He was godly. And to godliness, brotherly kindness.  Paul lists kindness after godliness.  Now that you’re in rest, you’re not so worried about meeting your own needs anymore; you know God’s got you covered, and you can wait peacefully for Him to come through.  Now you have energy to spare, and you can use it to see and joyfully meet the desires and needs of those around you.  (The fruit of kindness is joy, because it feels pretty great to help others.)  And to brotherly kindness, love.  This is the ultimate destination - to sow love into the lives of others, as we have received it from God.  (“Freely you have received; freely give,” Matt 10:8.) What this tells me is that we can’t just pray for patience and get it, in the same way that you can’t just pray for a Ph.D. and get it without putting in the necessary time and effort.  It happens as a result of a process - that’s how God set it up.  We have to first believe God, then follow after Him, then get to know Him, and then we gain His power to control ourselves and persevere, even in the face of hardship or long delays.  Once we learn how to do this, we bear the fruit of patience.  That’s when we can “sleep in the boat,” as it were.  We’re not worried about the circumstances - now we can “walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7), bec

Sally K. Norton, MPH is a distinguished expert in dietary oxalates with 35 years of health education and research experience. She holds a nutrition degree from Cornell University and a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her path to becoming a leading expert on dietary oxalate includes a prior career working at prestigious medical schools in medical education and public health research. Sally championed a five-year, National Institute of Health-funded program at the UNC Medical School that educated students and faculty about holistic, alternative, and integrative healing. Her personal healing experience inspired years of research, culminating in the release of her groundbreaking book, Toxic Superfoods, which was released in January 2023 and is available everywhere books are sold. You can pick up a copy of Toxic Superfoods here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0593139585?tag=randohouseinc7986-20 Learn more about Sally at https://sallyknorton.com/ or you can find her on YouTube as SallyKNorton Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Your words have tremendous power to influence the course of your life.    Jesus teaches it this way. In Matthew 15, the Pharisees are arguing with Jesus because he and his disciples eat food that is considered “unclean” by Jewish law.  Jesus explains to them, “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean’... But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.  These are what make a man ‘unclean’” (Matt 15:11-19).   Jesus has connected three things here: thoughts, words, and actions.  They go in that order: your thoughts are seeds, and they get planted in the “soil” of your heart.  They don’t necessarily change the environment right away, but when that seed has been planted, it will germinate, and will spring up and become a tree, which will eventually bear fruit.  So you’d better be careful what you’re planting.   Round and Round We Go   When I was in my early 20s, I realized my life was on a merry-go-round.  I was living essentially the same story over and over again.  The names and details might change, but the characters and circumstances were basically consistent.  I wrestled with this for years; I had an intuitive sense that it was a spiritual principle somehow (because everyone’s story seemed to repeat itself, not just mine!), but I could not for the life of me figure out why.    I was 25 when I finally understood (and wondered why it had taken me so long, because it seemed so blatantly obvious in retrospect).  In all of those iterations of the same story, there was only one common denominator: me.  I realized that my beliefs were essentially, “My life will always be this way.  I will never get out of this cycle.  I will always repeat this pattern.”  I bitterly said something to this effect every time I told my tale of woe to a sympathetic friend.  I wrote about it every day in my journal.  I prayed about it every day to God - but despite the biblical promises that God had something better for me, I never actually believed what God said my future held.  Instead, I told Him that my future would be exactly the same as my past.  I gained a twisted sense of satisfaction by complaining, little knowing that my words were actually prophetic. I was planting seeds, and those seeds were bearing fruit - unfortunately, the fruit they bore was exactly the same fruit I was already harvesting in my life.  Instead of recognizing this and changing what I planted, I’d cut open that fruit, pull out the seeds, and plant them right back in the soil of my heart.  For years.   Jesus compares the Word of God to a seed in the Parable of the Sower (Matt 13:1-23).  When it falls on good soil and isn’t choked out by the cares of this life and deceitfulness of wealth, Jesus said that seed will germinate, sprout and bear fruit - thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold.  But this process is indifferent: your heart will grow whatever you plant in it, whether the seed is good or bad. “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit... For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt 12:33-34; Luke 6:43-45).   Guard Your Heart   The first five books of the Bible contain extremely detailed laws that the Jews had to abide by in order to be “right” with God.  The Pharisees had even added hundreds of additional laws of their own by the time Jesus showed up.  But their laws were all about external actions.  Jesus’ laws went much deeper - his dealt not just with wrong actions, but with the wrong thinking that eventually produced wrong actions (Matt 5).  Jesus said it’s not enough to not commit murder - don’t even think about murder.  It’s not enough not to commit adultery - don’t even look at a woman lustfully.  What’s he saying?  Guard your heart.  He knows that the heart will grow whatever you plant in it.  The thought will eventually produce the words, and the words will eventually produce the actions.   Because the heart grows whatever you plant in it, before anything else you have to start with Solomon’s famous advice: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov 4:23).    So be vigilant about what you plant in your heart.  Solomon talks about this a lot:   “Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.  Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov 7:1-3). “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction” (Prov 16:23).</

Rafaele Joudry has dedicated her life to helping people overcome auditory problems and enhance their lives through better brain performance. She was guided to introduce her mother to Sound Therapy, which proved life-changing for fatigue, insomnia, sound sensitivity and difficulty hearing in social situations.  As a result, Rafaele and her mother developed the self help Sound Therapy program which helped thousands of people to find relief for tinnitus, dizziness, anxiety and sleeplessness. As a world leader in self help Sound Therapy, Rafaele has enabled individuals from all walks of life to benefit from unique discoveries about how the ears can enhance the performance of the entire nervous system. She has authored three best selling books, and helped many thousands of listeners to improve communication, learning, focus, sleep, creativity and brain performance. To contact Sound Therapy International go to www.mysoundtherapy.com/podcast Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

David Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices in multiple states, managing $4.5 billion in client assets. Prior to launching The Bahnsen Group he spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS.  He is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and Fox Business, and is a regular contributor to National Review.  He hosts the popular weekly podcast, Capital Record, dedicated to a defense of free enterprise and capital markets. He is the author of several best-selling books. Today he’s here to talk about his upcoming book, “Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life.” To learn more about David, see fulltimebook.com or bahnsen.com  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Kim Shapira M.S., R.D. is a celebrity dietitian, nutritional therapist, and author, with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Tulane University and a Master’s degree in Human Metabolism and Clinical Nutrition from Boston University. Kim has spent over 25 years helping people lose weight and keep it off (with a giant emphasis on keeping it off), both in her private Los Angeles practice, in hospitals, sports clinics, addiction centers and universities. When she's not helping her clients take back their relationship with food, she is a wife and mother of three children and three pups. Kim often appears as a guest expert for Yahoo!, Just Jenny, Sky News, Vanity Fair, Pop Sugar, Podcasts, and will be happy to pop in and be a guest speaker for your book clubs. To learn more about Kim, you can find her on any social media platform, at kimshapiramethod.com or you can check out her book, "This Is What You're Really Hungry For," here.  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Peggy Ployhar is the SPED Homeschool Founder &amp; CEO, an organization that empowers families to home educate diverse learners. She is also the owner of Eternal Aerial Arts where she teaches aerial arts classes and coaches a student performance team. Peggy is a speaker, aerial performer, podcaster, author, breast cancer survivor, and 19-year retired homeschool veteran. She and her husband Doug live in League City, TX and enjoy paddle boarding, hiking, and camping in their classic Airstream. To learn more about Peggy, go to www.spedhomeschool.com Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.