40 DAY DETOX - Day 1

Detox Day 1: Try to think about everything you have eaten in the past week – the meals, the snacks, the treats. Think about the speed, the company, the nourishment,and the habits that you have gotten into. Is God trying to tell you anything about you life through your attitude toward food?

Food has always been an issue for me. The reason why I even found this book was because God has been convicting me about the way I treat my spiritual body and my physical body. In my mind the two are so deeply intertwined that when I lack in one area the other area suffers as well. For example I've noticed that the days that I feel really bad about myself is mostly because I do not feel good about my physical body, not in a eating disorder way more in the way that I realize that I only have one chance at this thing called life and I really don't want to roll my way through it only feeling half as good as I could be feeling. I've also noticed that the days when I feel closest to God I feel like I could run for 12 miles and still have the “Jesus glow” about me. I find it so interesting that it wasn't until this year in the Nazarene General Assembly that obesity was brought up, yet every other time we have met people seemed so concerned about drinking and heaven forbid doing a little do si do with your partner. I'm sure that by writing this I have already offended twelve people but just hear me out.

In 1 Corinthians 10:31 it says, “Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”. Can't say I have been following this scripture because that means that every-time I run through McDonald's and have fries and a large coke that I am, or I should be eating and drinking that for the glory of God.. what?? I wish I knew more verses about this and if anyone does have any, please feel free to share.

I just finished reading Donald Miller's book called “Searching for God knows what”. After reading a few chapters in this book a very simple idea hit me (I'm sure I am the last person that has got this idea.. everyone else is like duh!!). When we choose to live in sin, God is not punishing us.. we are just feeling the natural consequences of our sin. For example, when I go into McDonald's (please don't think that I now believe McDonald's is the closest thing to hell, because I don't) and have my usual, which consists of a McChicken sandwich, medium fry and large coke I feel like crap. I feel like someone has sat on all of my airways and that I may just need oxygen to get me out to my car. I have also noticed that I feel like that for a while.. like maybe a few hours. After reading Donald Millers book I realized that this is a natural consequence of my sin. It's become sort of a joke between Eric and I now because whenever I fall into this temptation and I'm reaping the consequences of it later, Eric just looks at me with those “told you so eyes” and says “Natural consequence!!”.

See what I mean? I can't imagine what my life would be like, how much healthier I would be physically and spiritually if I gave God control of every part of my life and let Him make all of my decisions. Call me crazy, but I'm willing to try it. So I'm not going to declare a specific item that I'm going to give up, I'm just going to generally say that during this 40 day Detox I am going to let God make the decisions for everything, including what, where, how, when and whom I eat with.