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Diet :Lessons From Personal Experience
For almost two months, Paula and I have been on a diet in an effort to lower my
cholesterol and improve our overall health. We've lost a few pounds, we feel
better and I trust my cholesterol is going down. But aside from these obvious
benefits, I've learned some things that have spiritual implications.
AVAILABILITY. If some good tasting (fat,
sweet, dripping) food is available, it is so hard to resist it. But when I
walk into the kitchen around noon time, and there's nothing there but salad
material and fruit, that's what I eat. If, alongside the lettuce, there is pizza
or a cheeseburger, the tendency is to rationalize and go ahead with the high fat
stuff. Likewise, in our efforts to resist sin - if the opportunity is all around
us, it is harder. We should do everything we can to avoid temptation, for
it should be our desire to refrain from anything that would displease the
Father. "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one,"
(Matt. 6:13).
VICTORY, from day to day. Especially those
first days, it was a real struggle. During the first week of our diet, every
television commercial was about food; I mean, GREAT looking food, just begging
to be eaten. Yet, each day of victory seemed to give us strength for the next
day. It is the same in being a disciple and defeating sin. Each time you push
the devil out of your way to serve the Lord, that victory prepares you for the
next assault. It is a daily struggle against the devil, but each day of victory
gives us the strength for the next day. "I write to you, young men, because you
have overcome the wicked one...," (1 Jno. 2:13).
CHANGING YOUR HABITS. A good diet involves
a permanent change in your eating habits, and when those old (unhealthy habits)
are changed, you develop a taste for the good stuff. I have discovered that
low-fat and low-cholesterol food can actually taste good and now I even prefer
it! You would think, after several weeks of low-fat food, you would crave a
licentious trip to Golden Coral or MacDonald's. Not so. You seem to reach a
point, in changing your eating habits, where the low-fat stuff becomes your
preference and a cheeseburger dipped in gravy makes you sick! 'Therefore, laying
aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn
babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, as newborn
babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed
you have tasted that the Lord is gracious," (1 Pet. 2:1-3).
By Warren E. Berkley
The Front Page
From Expository Files 3.3; March 1996
