parallels

I'd really like to live at about 20 pounds less than I do. I'd really like to eat healthy in order to steward my body well for God. How badly do I want those things? Not enough. Not enough to die to some of my junk food habits/addictions....not badly enough to sacrifice toward a new reality or to persevere to freedom. I can tell you that I want it badly, and I can honestly ask you to show me and teach me what that journey would look like, but my attachments/addictions continue to keep me deceived into believing that the way I eat is really freedom while the road to healthy eating would be enslaving and not any fun. The vision isn't more compelling than my reality to consider it a pearl of great price. My pain and need isn't great enough to prompt the intention and sacrifice and perseverance needed for change. God's been bugging me about this for some time as I sense His nudging to gain more of a right relationship with food, be healthier, and live more freely in His Kingdom as related to food. I can honestly say I have added some healthier habits into my diet over the past few years, but bondage will continue as long as I'm unwilling to die to some other habits. Ah, dying. I think it says something about that in the Bible. Dying to find life.

Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars annually on weight loss techniques. People want to lose weight. People don't want to die of disease related to poor nutrition or obesity. I think statistics say that about 5% of people succeed in keeping weight off once they've lost it. It's a difficult journey, but it is a journey to freedom. It requires adding some new habits, but it does also require dying to others. It will require trust that through the death journey there really is more freedom and wholeness and joy waiting.

This food journey has parallels to the discipleship journey. There are many people in our churches who say that they want to grow spiritually. They will honestly say that they want others to show and teach them how. But quite frankly, the vision of living in the reality of the Kingdom of God now in this life isn't more compelling than the worldly life we live, and the sense of need isn't great enough to prompt the intention and sacrifice and perseverance necessary for change. I think we can add some things to our lives that will help us grow spiritually, but I believe some pretty big hurdles will exist until we are able to die to some attachments/addictions that keep us from Kingdom living. Attachment means "nailed to". I have nailed my desire for Christ to things other than Christ in my life. We have numerous attachments/addictions/idols in our culture...false sense of safety and security, status and power, money, comfort, consumerism, to name a mere couple that I deal with. The vision and trust that Christ is greater than every single desire I've attached elsewhere, and the willingness to die to anything I'm placing over Christ, is a big deal as we seek to grow spiritually. It will require an honest look at our attachments, repentance, and radical dependence and trust in God in order to remove self from throne. It will require dwelling in the Word of God. It will require community committed to living courageously in a new and countercultural way. It will require service and sacrifice. It will require grace-filled high expectations. This is to be the Church. This is who I need around me to embolden and encourage me on difficult journeys toward freedom and dying to find life. Not only does God's Spirit give me joy and affirm my inches of dying with a rich and satisfying drink of Kingdom life, but His Church at her best also gives me tastes of the Kingdom that keep me coming back with maybe just a little more courage the next round to die some more until my life is completely hidden in God.