I am a no expert when it comes to proper nutrition or on
having a ‘perfect’ body. For those who know me personally, they can attest that
I am still chubby.
For so many years now, I’ve been on a habit of losing
weight. Though there are times that I’ve been successful, I still end up with
an adipose-rich body. But years before, there are these unhealthy mindsets I
had about losing weight. I tried crash diets, slimming products.
I realized that the goal to lose weight is no different from
the goal to have a changed life. If I am very eager to remove those unnecessary
fats inside my body, it should be the same on how I want to remove bad habits
in my life.
I know this might sound ridiculous or you may find it hard
to understand the metaphor but please bear with me. Here are some of them...
1. Carbo-trim and my love for carbo-rich food. A
perfect match?
Are you familiar with a certain slimming
product that claims to burn down the carbohydrates you will take in even you
eat a lot of it? The first time I saw it on a commercial; I got tempted to buy and
try it. Just imagine, the same volume of food I enjoy, yet I will never get
fatter. What a dream come true. It would be very tempting to have this product
because you can have two birds in one shot. But how this become an unhealthy
mindset for me? It’s because I neglected the essence of why I would want to
lose weight – to stay healthy.
The same is with our bad habits and Christ.
We cannot both keep our ugly old life together with Christ. It is true that
Christ can remove those unnecessary weights in my life, but why would I keep on
taking in lots of carbohydrates when I know that my body won’t need that? If I
have been set free from my old life and I am now a new creation, why would I
keep on sinning? I know there’s enough grace for any sin I would do; but that’s
not the way God wants me to live, Jesus came to set me free from the extra
carbohydrates that are surely just a waste for my body.
He doesn’t want me to regularly do my bad
habits and then do a ministry work, attend all the services of the week or read
my Bible from cover to cover whenever I start to feel the guilt. I believe that
Jesus is not a regular solution for my recurrent weight problem but He is, a
once and for all, the only solution for it.
2. I decided to lose weight (again) for someone.
If you have decided to lose weight
to impress that certain guy in your Math 17 recit class, then you are doing it
wrong. Why? Because you are doing it in vain.
I did that years ago wherein I tried so hard to lose weight for a guy
but ended up frustrated and even resulted to eating more due to rejection.
\
As Christians, there are more
pressures given to us. People expect us to be nothing less but perfect
individuals. Hence, many times, we got conscious if what we are doing, how we
do it is still able to meet other people’s standard for us. I know it is just
right that we do good works. But once we focused more on pleasing these people
around us and forgetting why we are supposed to be doing things right, we might
end up burnout and frustrated of doing it. Worse is, when rejection comes, just
like what I did before, we might find ourselves rebelling, and doing the opposite
things of what we are supposed to be doing.
We have to keep in mind why we are
doing good works. It is not to impress the people around us. It is not to gain
approval from other people, even from God. We do good works because you know that
God give you an identity that is more than just being a couch potato during
weekend. That there’s more to life than keeping my unhealthy lifestyle.
3. I skipped meal. I ended up eating more.
One of the craziest diet tips I got
from a friend: Skip your lunch. I thought that since I eat nothing during
lunchtime, there are fewer tendencies for me to gain weight. I sacrificed my
lunch dates with my friends so that I won’t be tempted to eat. However, during
dinner it is when I eat most. Two cups of rice, TJ hotdogs, coke. At school my
classmates think that I am already determined to lose weight but they didn’t
know what I am eating when at home.
Just like skipping meals, we tend
to spontaneously remove bad habits that we have. Perhaps, it might be of help,
but I assure you, it won’t be permanent. Why? Because the more we manually
change our sinning in our own way, the more we become aware of how to unchange
it. It’s just physical solutions; the problem is something from within. On
Sundays, we sing praise and worship, on Tuesdays, we attend small groups,
Wednesday or Thursday we attend Youth Service, but how about our Fridays and
Saturdays? What do we do during those times we are not surrounded by other
people?
It is so hard to
overcome old life by simply not doing a bad habit without replacing it with the
Truth that would make us healthy. In our nutrition life, it would not be easy
to follow a diet plan without accepting the fact that the way we eat food is
not right. It is hard to be consistent eating balanced food when everyday we are
served with many junk foods of life. But what God’s word is saying that HE has
the best “diet plan” for every one of us (Jeremiah 29:11), plans to prosper us
and not to harm us and that in every temptation, he is faithful and will
provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Now to end this blog, let me ask you this question: Do you
think there is/are area(s) in your life that you think is unhealthy or may not
be according to God’s diet plan for you?
If your answer is no, then congratulations.
But if your answer is yes, are you willing to accept God’s
diet plan for you and live with it?
I challenge you, accept God’s invitation to make your life
lighter. J
29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
-Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV)