So where did I leave you dear reader? Are you wondering how bad I have it? Am I going to be sipping the Kool-Aid, forbidding my family to go to the doctor and just sitting in my dinning room waiting for God to fix things? Well I hope that isn't what you came away from the last post with. But just in case you were wondering allow me to clarify and please if you continue to question the soundness of my mind please feel free to shoot me off a comment.
The problem I was having was that the "diets" seem to conflict with one another while they all appear to be based on good R & D and don't especially have a lot of post introduction product to sell. Yet there is certainly a bent each one brings to the table, a certain ailment group that the "diet" had success with and is now addressing except that the authors seem to think that everyone is going to either have or come down with some form of said ailment and therefore This Diet is the diet to end all diets.
What the Holy Spirit was and is telling me is that He can guide me through the duty of feeding my family. Not in just a general sort of "God, make sure all my choices are good ones today" but in a very specific manner. The Holy Spirit brought to my mind a picture of a group of people that are gathered around a meal table, you've dinned with them often I'm sure, and someone in the group prays a typical meal time prayer "over the food" and it ends something like, "Father, bless this food to our bodies." Other than what the heck does that really mean, I was struck by the picture that the Holy Spirit showed me that usually happens next, nearly everyone at the table eats what they choose to eat and eat plenty of it, or freak out over something at the meal and completely avoid that particular food. How often do we ask and then ignore.
A picture came to mind of how God wishes for us to eat, Act 10:9-16
About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching
the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted
something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by
its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
Yes, he uses this illustration to get Peter to speak to the Gentiles, however he did use this illustration and the illustration is not false. Not unlike the issue we run across in Ephesians 5, is Paul talking only about marriage or only about the relationship of the Church to Christ or is he talking about both? God has given us plenty. Plenty to eat and nourish our bodies, to heal an ailment, to celebrate and feast with and to fast from.
Along with that God loves to talk with us, sometimes he gets through to us in a trance, sometimes in a meditative moment, sometimes in the middle of a seeming ordinary conversation about something that might be totally unrelated or appearing to be. Sometimes he talks to us through others, dietitians, doctors, scientists, nutritionists, moms, dads, sons, daughters... But we need to hear His words through them and not get caught up in their words or their spin or their philosophy once it departs from the message God is expressing to you.
So no, I am not throwing off information from the scientific or even anecdotal field of nutrition and fitness because I believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to me through those things as well as a bath tub but I hope to earnestly pray so that I may clearly hear.
Call it a sheet diet or a 1 Corinthians diet (1 Corinthians 6:12, 10:23-27) or any number of passages that we can find on or using the subject of food and its beauty, simplicity and detriment. But I am not interested in Old Testament legalities that Christ has freed me from, unless he clearly invites me to partake in them for an illustration or ailment. I invite you dear reader, if you are interested, to come along with me on my journey. From here on out my journey with God specifically in the arena of food, fitness (lack of laziness) and the spiritual disciplines associated with them will be on another blog site, which I intend to set up later today during tea time. But for now I must say see you later because I have an appointment to exercise with my good friend Terry and share with her my eureka.
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