When Christians are health nuts, The Prequel

So I think it’s time to dust off this baby and get back to blogging…I’ve just recently completed a transfer at work, so my energy and inspiration levels for writing have been a little low, of late.

But now? Now I’ve got another little series for you…

And this one? This one may just be my passion – that thing that makes me come alive, that gets neurons firing, that makes me launch on long soap-boxes to my poor husband whose heard my sermons repeated, oh, ten thousand times.

I think he can recite them word for word.

See, I’m really passionate about getting people healthy. Like, vibrant, the body-is-a-miraculous-creation type healthy. And I’ve been interested in health for a long time – probably over a decade now that I’ve spent researching and reading everything about healthy living that I can get my hands on.

But do you know the sad thing? Most of the materials I read are NOT from a Christian worldview. In fact, with the exception of a small handful of wise Christians (don’t worry, you’ll find out who they are), I don’t really know many people who are helping explain how healthy living fits within following Jesus.

In fact, quite the contrary. For centuries upon centuries, our church fathers have (mostly) taught us that the body is evil. You know, “the flesh.” That horrible, nasty thing we are chained in until we finally escape this imprisonment and float around heaven as free souls. You know, that awful body that wants to have sex and gets hungry and tired and distracts us from following Jesus.

You know. That one.

So, I’ve been witness to conversations throughout my life that go like this: “Oh, I don’t take time to exercise. That just takes time away from serving my family and my church and the Lord.” “Healthy eating? Why are you trying to live longer? The Lord’s going to make your day come when it comes. Nothing you can do to fight that!”

Psst. You want to know what I think?

That these perspectives are dead. wrong.

There are just a few people out there who are daring to say that being healthy IS, in fact, following Jesus. Care to be one with me?

I present to you my Manifesto for Healthy Living in Christ.

Yes, there are some sticky issues. Yes, this is going to challenge some things that you’ve always been taught/heard/thought. But hang in there with me. Because on the other side is the life that God intended for you to live when He made you.

BUT

There are a few things we need to talk about first before we dive into manifesto-ing.

Two, to be exact.

Because here’s something I’m even more passionate about than health: Truth.

And I want to make sure that we start this journey with the absolute right mindset.

Number One. God is sovereign, and He is on the throne. He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and he brings everything to pass as He wills, whether it be storms or droughts or prosperity or floods or spring or princes or princes’ decisions. Want some reassurance? Go dig into the book of Isaiah! The Lord, the Lord, full of strength and might and majesty and power is absolutely sovereign over the earth. And Him? This Lord of Heaven’s Armies? He is full of love, abounding in grace and Absolutely. Totally. Completely. Good. There is no one as loving, no one as merciful, no one as good as him.

That’s great, Jenni. What does this have to do with health?

Well…just about…EVERYTHING.

Because having an absolutely sovereign Creator-God means that everything in this world is by His design, and this understanding totally reorients the whole of our thinking.

I hear so many people talking about God’s sovereignty as if he’s a magician. You know…if you follow God’s commands, it will go well with you (we hear this over and over again in the Books of the Law, Genesis through Deuteronomy). But we explain it as if God is pulling bunnies out of hats. God, because he’s so powerful, will overcome this horrible world in an act of blessing and make it better for you, despite the reality of this (did we mention it?) horrible, fallen world that we live in.

Let’s set that on its head, shall we? Things do not go well with us when we follow God because he intervenes in reality and makes it that way. Things go well when we follow God because he CREATED and DEFINED reality. In other words, when God tells us, it will go well for you when you don’t commit murder, he’s not saying that it will go well because He’ll somehow change your reality and make it all better. He’s telling us it will go well because that’s how he set up the Universe to work in the first place. God established the very laws of nature and morality. He is the source, the designer – it all springs from him. When we live God’s way, we live the way we were created to, not against it. That’s why it goes well with us. We are living according to reality, the reality of the Lord.

Do you get this? This is why we talk about absolute Truth with a capital T. This is absolutely essential to understanding the loving character of God.

Because, if God designed reality, and God is loving and good, then reality (as it was intended) is loving and good. When we live according the reality of God’s design for us, we are living in and experiencing the sum of God’s loving goodness.

Still with me?

So, if God is the sovereign creator of reality, that means that reality is how He designed it to be. Not a mistake. Not a mishap. Not a coincidence. Not a chance happening.

But total, supernatural, real design.

[Of course, we do live in a world affected by sin – the fallen world. Don’t worry; we’ll talk about that. But the fact that the world is fallen does not change the fact that God is sovereign. He is just as sovereign now as he was in the Garden of Eden. That never changed. We still live in a world designed and controlled by God. Satan and sin and evil are NEVER NEVER EVER EVER equal to or more powerful than God in ANYTHING. Don’t ever forget this. We do not live in a dualistic reality where Good and Evil fight an equal back-and-forth battle. No. God has and is and will always win this battle. He has been, is now, and will always be on the throne. He is the only sovereign God. Get this…if you get nothing else…get this. It is the best thing that could ever be real, and it is the core of all reality.]

So, if God is sovereign in the design of the world, it means that nature working optimally is nature working as God intended. I’ll say it again: things go well for us when we follow God’s design, because he rules over how things work.

Absolutely everything is under God’s control and design – according to His will, according to His purpose.

Got it?

Number Two. We are under grace. My manifesto is not about earning God’s favor, nor about disappointing him when we fail. This is about the celebration of living joyfully according to God’s design, because we love him and trust him and understand that when we live the way he created us to live, we enter into the joy of his reality and things go well for us. This is not about salvation, or good works, or brownie points or legalism. This is about the Lord of Heaven’s Armies loving you with an everlasting love and showing you the way that you can most joyfully, efficiently glorify Him.

Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The glory of God.

We glorify God when we joyfully live in his reality, because we become his workmanship and prove that he is so good, and so holy.

So, if you’re ever tempted (like I am, often) over the next few days and weeks and months and years to make health, or anything else, about favor and worth, come back here: We live under grace. We are saved through faith, not from ourselves, but as a gift from God’s love.

[Want more grace-living? Read my series about preaching the Gospel. It just might change your life].

So, let’s dive in, shall we?

When your life is a Saturday

There’s this sort of breathlessness between the Cross and the Empty Tomb. A weighted, tight-lunged, pursed-lip hold. A pause. A full stop.

Can you feel it?

The day the disciples trembled, gathered…were silent.

They couldn’t have had much to say to each other. Jesus…dead…Jesus…dead…Jesus…dead. What is the world like when the Son of Man is dead? When the past three years of your life fall to shambles with the loud, earth-cracking last exhale of the King of the Jews?

When every hope, every dream – the very words of eternal life – lie in a still, cold body in a still, cold grave. 

It’s what they had to be thinking. Jesus spoke to them of the death, the silence, the resurrection (demolishing and rebuilding the temple). He gave them the sign of Jonah. But I get the feeling they never really got it.

I get the feeling they spent Saturday hushed, breathless, wounded, tired…totally and completely lost. I get the feeling that no words, no comforts – nothing – answered the high-pitched questions ringing through their ears, throwing them off balance: Who was this Jesus, after all?

It’s Saturday.

I’m tired.

And it’s funny how the tiniest of things will set you off when you are tired.

For me, it was literally a tiny thing – a small bug, no more than a centimeter long. But I hate bugs. Like really, really hate bugs.

Spiders? I can deal with spiders. They are predictable, quiet, calm – and easily killed. They are part of the expected routine of living in a house. Fighting cobwebs in corners, flushing a particularly hairy specimen down the toilet – it’s part of the drill.

But bugs?

Bugs don’t belong anywhere near human dwelling places.

The worst offenders for me: moths, crickets, and that most hideous of lifeforms, the silverfish.

I mean, have you ever seen a silverfish? They are this mutant creature, somewhere between centipede and scorpion and earwig, long and wiggly and fast. They eat books, glue, and lurk on ceilings above your college shower. They creep in and out of radiators, and are all together pesky and obnoxious.

Did I mention I hate bugs?

And, Long Island living, in the way of bugs, has not been kind to me. The altitude, cold and dry climate of Colorado produces few specimens – we have to fight spiders, bees, a few grasshoppers, an assortment of over-sized moths, and maybe an occasional ant-hill. But here, in my Long Island cottage, summer means that my house is a menagerie of six-legged creatures. And last summer, I sent my husband chasing bugs all over the house – usually some deformed cricket, or an extra-speedy spider.

And it really got under my skin.

We have yet to get a bed-frame, so we are sleeping, as I like to say, Japanese-style – mattress on the floor. And all last summer, every time a bug went un-killed overnight, I would be convinced that said bug was going to get on my bed.

Wimp? Most definitely, and I don’t apologize for it.

Add to the equation my first summer in high humidity and heat sans air conditioning. Equals hot, sticky, creepy crawly.

Not. much. fun.

So I’ve been sort of worried about the impending heat and humidity and…bugginess.

Among a lot of other things.

Work has been anything but a joy, between drama and bad management. My hours have been cut, leaving our already-tenuous finances squeezed. We’ve applied to different positions, without any response. A promotion that was guaranteed to me over the next month has been moved into the “someday” realm, and some other hopes have fallen through. We’ve been looking for new apartments, without much luck.

It’s been a rough month.

And summer’s coming. A season I didn’t really enjoy so much last year.

So, I was packing Thom’s lunch this week. And something…squirmed…its way under the tupperware I placed in the open bag.

My typical reaction? Make a little squeal, and promptly drop bag on floor. Then, gain some bravery, and…carefully, carefully…lift tupperware. The criminal? A teeny, weeny, itty, bitty, less-than-a-centimeter long silverfish.

Such a little thing. But it threw me over the edge.

When is life going to get better (aka, easier)? When is God going to open doors? Why are we stuck here? I get it, God, you want us to learn contentment. But, really? We’ve been married almost ten months! I think that’s long enough for anyone to learn contentment!! I mean, c’mon! Couldn’t you at least show us some job? Some raise? Some promotion? Some new apartment?  Couldn’t you direct us somewhere, plant a seed, blow a breeze? Something…anything…anything to get us out of this breathless living space where there are no open doors and windows and there’s just now and paycheck-to-paycheck and BUGS!

Because sometimes, life is a Saturday between the Cross and the Empty Tomb. Sometimes, by all appearances, God isn’t acting how God should. Sometimes, we sit as the disciples and don’t understand anything that is going on. Or, as they probably felt – we don’t understand the lack of anything happening.

I mean, shouldn’t Jesus have come blasting back from death instantly? He was powerful enough, and sovereign enough. Couldn’t he have breathed his last, and the earth quaked, and the curtain split, and then suddenly, mightily, he resurrected and bound from the Cross?

He could have. 

But instead, he waited a whole, quiet, breathless, miserable Saturday.

And guess what? (You’re not going to like this, I promise. Because it drives me crazy). On Saturday, there was nothing for the disciples to do but…wait…and…rest.

Wait and rest. Wait and rest. Wait and rest.

In the crashing-in of their world, the mass confusion of a still-dead Savior and once-deads walking around alive, the disciples could do nothing but wait and rest.

To be still.

When our lives are Saturdays? When paychecks don’t quite cover expenses, and we apply to new jobs, and the cars still break down, and the employers don’t respond? When bugs creep in and tear through the fray of frazzled nerves? When new living places aren’t found? When adoptions don’t go through? When cancer isn’t cured? When hopes are dashed and tears flow free? When life is breathless, painful, aimless, confusing? When we have absolutely no idea the next step to take?

We wait. And we rest.

Because, guess what?

(This, you’re really going to like, I promise. This…the hope of all hopes and the joy of all joys and the life of all life.)

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Resurrection Day!

The disciples didn’t know this. They weren’t sure of it. In fact, quite a few probably thought it was the end.

But the fact remains: it wasn’t. The sun set, and the sun rose. And the tomb was empty.

So, sit down with me awhile? Breathe? Rest? Wait?

Though the sorrow may last for the night, joy comes in the morning!

Isaiah 40 ~

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord[a];
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.[b]
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,
    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

9 You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
    and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
    or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
    or weighed the mountains on the scales
    and the hills in a balance?
13 Who can fathom the Spirit[d] of the Lord,
    or instruct the Lord as his counselor?
14 Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,
    and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
    or showed him the path of understanding?

15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
    they are regarded as dust on the scales;
    he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
    nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
17 Before him all the nations are as nothing;
    they are regarded by him as worthless
    and less than nothing.

18 With whom, then, will you compare God?
    To what image will you liken him?
19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and fashions silver chains for it.
20 A person too poor to present such an offering
    selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
    to set up an idol that will not topple.

21 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
    and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
    and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
    no sooner are they sown,
    no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
    and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

25 “To whom will you compare me?
    Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.

27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
    Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
    my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who wait on the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.