465: STOP Ignoring Your Body. Justin Whitmel Earley on Embodied Discipleship, Resisting Body-Idolatry, and How Sleep Rebuilds Your Soul

There’s a way to discuss spiritual growth that overlooks the body, and another way to treat the body as if it were a god. Both break you. This week on Win Today, Justin Whitmel Earley joins me to recover a practical theology of the body: why your habits, hormones, posture, screens, meals, and sleep are discipling your soul every day. We confront the twin errors of ignoring the body and idolizing it, and we name what happens when we undo created order—when we chronically outrun limits, trade rest for hurry, and expect spiritual vitality while violating how God made us to live. This isn’t theory. It’s a path back to integrated life with God, where your body becomes a teacher, not a tyrant.

You’ll learn:

• How Scripture’s view of body-and-soul grounds real formation—and why the body “teaches” the soul.
• How to resist the two ditches: ignoring the body (functional Gnosticism) and idolizing it (aesthetic perfectionism).
• Why sleep is spiritual formation—and how circadian sanity restores attention, emotions, and prayer.
• How small, repeatable habits (meals, media, posture, presence) disciple families and churches.
• What “undoing created order” looks like in modern life—and how to rebuild rhythms that honor our design.

Guest Bio

Justin Whitmel Earley is a lawyer, author, and speaker known for The Common Rule and Habits of the Household, where he helps people build life-giving habits that form them in the love of God and neighbor. His work sits at the intersection of everyday rhythms and spiritual formation, translating theology into practices that families and churches can actually live.

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Website | Instagram | YouTube

Resources Mentioned This Week

• The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life
• Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out

Show Partners

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