Physically Obese and Spiritually Malnourished

Matthew 4:4 “But Jesus told him, ‘No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ‘“ NLT

June 25, 2012 found me at the end of my rope. We had given everything we had to our ministry, but despite our best efforts, it just didn’t pay off in the tangible way we had hoped. The stress of the last few years had taken its toll on our family, our marriage, our finances, and our bodies. That day, it came to an end. I was physically obese and spiritually malnourished. We were drained, tired, burnt out, and I was obese.

For the first time in my entire life, I found myself outside of ministry, and it was an odd feeling. I had always had an identity in serving God, busy doing His work, whether as a pastor’s kid, a Bible college student, or a pastor. Now, I was none of those. What was my identity, I asked myself every day. I didn’t even have a job to contribute financially to my family, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. All I was, was a fat woman, I thought. I believed it too. That’s all I was, and no one could take me seriously like this. What’s more, my spiritual life had been drained emotionally too. I was always giving out, serving, but never taking in enough spiritual nourishment to restore what I had given. I was so dry spiritually, and everything I read or heard, I just soaked up like a sponge. I was certain that my sponge would never be saturated again.

In our Scripture today, we find Jesus of all people, at low point. He has fasted for 40 days, is drained physically, and Satan is trying his best tactics to tempt Jesus and bring Him down. Jesus has an answer, though. Here Jesus refuses to use his God-given power to get something that He trusted God to give Him. It was God’s place to provide the strength Jesus needed. Originally, this verse is found in Deuteronomy chapter 8, when the children of Israel are complaining and struggling with unbelief in God to provide food and nourishment. Unlike Israel, Jesus here looks to God the Father, unswerving in His faith. Because the very thing that Jesus needed was a word from God. 

Sometimes we think we just need energy and strength, sometimes it’s a pat on the back in encouragement of our work for God. Other times, we pray for God to give us a sign that our labor for Him is “paying off,” but we must remember that our work for Him isn’t always visible in the here and now. We need only trust in the God who has always provided richly to His people and who gives us balance. There is no need to worry whether the manna will fall, but simply trust in the Word He has already spoken to us.

Sometimes we think we just need to lose weight, and things will be better. We fool ourselves to thinking that our problem is a physical one when often times, it’s a spiritual one. I’m totally of the opinion that our physical life affects our spiritual life in a big way, yet which is more important? I’ve heard it said that it would be a shame to be physically fit for this world yet unfit to meet the King of Kings. 

There will be seasons in life, seasons of both plenty and want. But in those times, we have to rely on the Word of God to sustain us. He has already provided!

Are you out of balance in the fitness of your physical and spiritual life? He can bring balance and order! Read through Deuteronomy 8 and Matthew 4:1-11 and contrast the Israelites’ response to Jesus’ response to times of testing.

Encouragement for Today

1 Timothy 4:8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” NLT

Philippians 3:19 “They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.” NLT

Read more in my new book FitFaith, available on Amazon!

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

7 Days! In 7 days, just one week, my family and I will celebrate Christmas together. Gifts will be torn open, and the Christmas magic will explode. That's why today, just now even, I am deep-cleaning my home. Nobody's actually coming to my house besides the people that live here, but there's just something about a clean house on Christmas morning. I mean clean. Closets, baseboards, cabinets, the floor behind the big appliances...clean.

I don't know what exactly it is about cleanliness and holidays. But it seems to me that I can't really relax and enjoy the environment of excitement when there's a mess everywhere. I want to look back on photos of this Christmas and soak in the sweetness of my children's faces and not be distracted by the mess in the background.

I also have this crazy itch to help my kids (and me too) purge whatever isn't being used in their rooms and closets before Christmas. We donate any good-repair items to charity and the rest gets pitched. There's no need to keep things just for the sake of hoarding. And it makes finding a home in their room for new gifts a lot easier.

I know, I know...you'll read tons of blogs and articles on the web about just being "present in the moment." And you should. Absolutely, I am a firm believer that people come before process. People always come first...especially my own family. But for me, it's about preparing my home so that I have eliminated all distractions. The temptation is gone for me to be anything but present in the moment. I think my household cleanliness issue can mirror closely what should be happening in our hearts too.

I think of the Christmas carol, "Joy to the Word," and specifically, "Let ev'ry heart, prepare Him room..." This time of year, and all year, really, we are constantly bombarded with things to accomplish, stress, pressure, and temptations of all kinds. I think many times our hearts get so cluttered with all of the tactics of the enemy:  anxiety, jealousy, grief, resentment, stress, and many others I'm sure you could name.

If we don't take time at some point to take inventory of heart and purge all of the things that are unnecessary and allow the Holy Spirit to do some holiday cleaning, how will we ever be able to hear Him when He speaks and make room for His gifts? His gifts are simple, but oh so sweet: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness and self-control.

When David prayed his prayer in Psalm 51:10, he was repenting of sin and asking God to renew his soul. I think we all could benefit from repeating David's prayer as well. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." This year, my home won't be the only vessel ready for Christmas. Baseboards are on my list today. But when I'm on my knees scrubbing, I'll be praying David's prayer.

Why Reward Meals Really Aren't Rewarding

James 4:17 “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” NLT

“When is your cheat day,” someone asked me in the middle of my weight-loss journey. I didn’t know what they were talking about so I inquired further. Apparently, lots of fad diets boast about the once-a-week “cheat” meal or “rewards” meal. After talking about it a little more, I decided that I would indulge. After all, I’d been at this for months, and I hadn’t stepped out of line at all. I deserved it, and I had missed a whole lot of cheat meals. What would one meal hurt? So I loaded up the family, and we went out for Italian food. Chicken Scampi was on my menu for the evening, and I didn’t stop until I’d had the delicious breadsticks, two of them to be exact. It was so good. But in the back of my mind, I had this nagging feeling of guilt like I’d committed adultery or something. The food was good, but I felt horrible. I couldn’t even enjoy my hard earned “cheat.” Over the course of my weight-loss journey, I’ve had a few episodes like that. The food was great, but inside, I didn’t even enjoy it. And I sure didn’t enjoy it the next day when I stepped on the scale and had gained 2 pounds! 2 pounds! Really?!? From one meal? There’s no way I had consumed that many calories! When I looked up the nutrition, I had eaten a little over 1600 calories that meal. That was more than the calorie count I allotted for a typical day! 

After several occasions just like the one described above, I realized that the struggle I felt during and after my hard-earned “rewards” meal just wasn’t worth it. It took two extra days just to get back to where I was before I ate the one meal, and after having a ton of carbs or sugar, I struggled with temptation all the more. For me, I decided that cheating was too hard. There really was no reward involved.

Just like my cheat meals, James warns his readers about doing things contrary to what they know to be right. It just isn’t worth it, in fact, it is sin. There’s no getting around it. Sin separates us from God, and as Christians, that should be the last thing we would want. Temptation is so hard, but James gives us a way to deal with it. Earlier in this chapter, in verse 7 he says, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” 

Many people think that in order to battle temptation in weight loss, one must indulge but just a little. Their reasoning is that if you want a cookie, go ahead and eat the cookie so as to avoid eating two later. My suggestion is to find an alternative and turn to God. We’ve already established that no temptation is too great for God, and now we read in James that if we resist the devil, he will flee! I think the point just boils down to whom we want to please. Do we want to please our flesh? Or do we want to please God?

Do you indulge in cheat meals? What is the struggle like after you’ve indulged? Is it worth it or would you be better off living a healthy lifestyle in total completion?

Read through James 4 and find encouragement from his instructions. 

Galatians 6:7-8 “Don’t be misled--you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.” NLT

Proverbs 11:3 “Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.” NLT

Preparation

Matthew 24:43 “Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” NLT

Nothing to eat! I had just come home from work on a hot, humid summer day and was trying to make dinner plans. Nothing sounded good, and I was tired. Normally organized, I would at least make a mental plan for dinner earlier in the day so that things wouldn’t take so long once I’d arrived home. But today there was no mental plans happening outside of mortgage escrow, my current profession. There was no meat thawed, my lettuce was wilted, and I was tempted to just order pizza. That had been my go-to before...before I asked Jesus to help me, I thought. I had asked for Him to take control of this area of my life only a week before, and now here I was, considering pizza of all things. 

I had prayed prayers many times before over a pizza dinner. “Lord bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and our bodies to your service.” It’s laughable now that we pray those kind of prayers. If that’s the food that’s provided, then by all means be thankful for it. But in reality, we somehow spiritualize our bad eating choices and ask God to magically change the molecular structure! That night, there was a first prayer uttered that hasn’t gone unrepeated since. “Lord, please help me resist the temptation for pizza.” In that moment, I’m not kidding, God brought to mind a recipe I had read a few days before, and most of the ingredients were already on hand. I just had to run out to get a couple of things around the corner. 

I was thankful that God had delivered me from the temptation, but inside I was frustrated at myself for the huge struggle that had just occurred in my head. I realized that if I had only prepared ahead of time, the temptation wouldn’t have been so great. Don’t get me wrong; every time I open my mailbox and retrieve pizza coupons, there’s still a struggle there as to whether or not to throw them in the trash can. 

But preparation is truly the key. Every week before I go grocery shopping, I jot down a quick meal list so I at least have a rough plan in mind for things to buy. Having healthy ingredients on hand and readily at my disposal vastly cuts down on resorting to a quick fix in a drive-thru. Personally, every day, I make an eating plan for myself, calculating my nutrition and activity so I know how I’m doing and ensure that I’m able to stand against temptation. I even go so far as to cut up things like cantaloupe and watermelon and put them in a bowl in the refrigerator so they are quickly available when my sweet tooth takes over. I boil a few eggs every few days, peel them, and put them in a plastic baggie in the refrigerator. 

But things happen. Work takes longer than normal that day, traffic is backed-up, or someone gets sick, and we end up having to fill a need quickly. If we have yogurt cups, fruit, and almonds on hand, trust me, we can be ready for anything!

In our text today, we see Jesus speaking about His second coming. He speaks of the time when the Son of Man will come back for His church, and no one knows the time or the hour. The Scripture says that, unexpectedly, He will appear to claim those who have been faithful, and there are those who will be unprepared. Those who have not accepted Him as their Savior and have not lived a life pleasing to Him will be left. The Day of Judgment is coming, and no one knows the day or time. People who spend much time trying to figure out when/where He’s coming are only spinning their wheels and wasting valuable time. We must simply be prepared. That’s all He asks. Trust Him as your Savior and live a life pleasing to Him! Share Him with others so that they may be prepared too. When He comes, we’ll wish we had done more.

Are you prepared? Have you accepted Him as your Savior, or are you thinking that you’ve still got time? The Scripture is clear. “The Son of Man will come when least expected.”


Take some time today to read through Matthew chapters 24-25. He’s coming!

Encouragement for Today:

2 Timothy 2:15 “Work hard so that you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.” NLT

Matthew 7:13-14 “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” NLT

1 Corinthians 2:9b “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” NLT

Ideas for Preparation

1. Search blogs like skinnytaste.com and Pinterest for healthy recipes. Print them off and have them readily available.
2. Chop vegetables ahead of time for recipes so that they come together quickly when you’re ready to prepare.
3. Brown ground turkey/lean ground beef and put in a sealable bowl.
4. Make individual salads ahead of time and put them in the refrigerator.
5. Cut up melons.
6. Make things like chicken salad and tuna salad and store in the refrigerator.
7. Make sure there are healthy snack options waiting in the cupboard before a craving hits.
8. Get rid of everything that is unhealthy in the house. 
9. Boil eggs and peel them.
10. When bananas are going bad, I peel them and freeze them. Frozen bananas work well in smoothies.
11. When I’m grilling chicken, I grill double the amount to have it available for chicken salad and maybe tomorrow night’s dinner.
12. When eating out, check the nutrition facts online beforehand. Make a plan of what you’re going to order before you get there so as not to cave to temptation when faced with a plethora of unhealthy delicacies.
13. When I make a big pot of soup or chili, I freeze half of it in individual freezer bags. That’s portion control at its finest!