Ally or Enemy
April showers bring May flowers, but it’s also the time when everyone comes out of winter hibernation. In the south, it means the start of crawfish boils, family cookouts, outdoor weddings, and graduation parties. Your social life is usually poppin’ around this time and you can’t help but to indulge in all of your favorite foods like ribs, chicken, crawfish, mac & cheese, potato salad, ice cream and…. did I mention mac & cheese? This is the season where people eat all they want and pray for the best. Besides, nobody wants to be the rude guest that doesn’t eat…….right? Of course not!…especially not in the south. We were raised better than that.
When we were younger we didn’t worry about our health because we ate what we wanted, and if we gained a little extra weight, we were so active that we bounced right back like nothing ever happened. As we age, the bounce back gets a little slower…and it seems we do too. The “itis” becomes reality, clothes get tighter, blood pressure starts to rise and we can’t climb a flight of stairs without getting winded. Working out five times a week becomes three, then two, until the gym slowly becomes a distant memory.
What’s worse is we eat whatever we want, barely workout, we neglect the proper fuel we need to strengthen our bodies, and have the nerve to get surprised when sickness and disease creeps in. As Christians, we are programmed to simply pray for healing and ask God to work a miracle for us in our health, but we refuse to make the necessary lifestyle changes in our eating patterns. Something clearly doesn’t add up here. God is definitely a healer, a miracle worker, and more than able to restore our health. But what sense does it make to ask Him to heal us if we will just continue putting the sickness and disease back into our bodies?
This pattern of entitlement comes from a lack of alignment in our thinking. It’s called “christian privilege.” If we refuse to cooperate with God’s plan for our health by doing the exact opposite of what it takes to live in health, then we can’t deceive ourselves into believing that we are functioning from the mind of Christ, nor can we say that we are in union with the Father because our diet clearly proves otherwise. Whenever we reject the plans of God for any aspect of our lives, be it health, wealth, purpose, faith, you name it… we become an ally to the enemy of our souls, and we are actively working his plans to destroy us. Now this may be a hard pill to swallow, but the truth is simple.
God wants us to have total health and He has given us the tools and resources to live a healthy life, but do we always use them?…not so much. I know that mac & cheese tastes good to us in the moment, but the fruits and vegetables that fuel our bodies will be good for us for a lifetime. Many of us were raised on momma’s biscuits and gravy and we were taught that it’s rude to decline food when a host or hostess offers. But we can’t be so concerned about other people’s feelings if our choices offend God and defy His plans for our health. Our health is our responsibility. We learned to eat unhealthy foods one bite at a time, and in the same manner, we have to start learning to eat healthy foods one bite at a time.
God is extremely gracious towards us in giving us truth and empowering us to make healthy decisions. But are we honoring that grace and applying that truth? Or are we functioning in entitlement and christian privilege, expecting Him to do His part and refusing to do ours? The latter just shouldn’t be. We always have the power to make decisions that will either cooperate with God’s plans or defy them. So, the next time you sit down to eat, remember the power you’ve been given to choose, and ask yourself, “Am I being an ally to the plans of God for my health, or an enemy?”
