Where's My Healing?

The biggest cause of significant health problems in the US today is behavior.  Heart disease, diabetes, some forms of cancer, etc, are all deeply entwined with personal choices.  And those are just some of the major categories of diseases that require significant medical intervention.  We can go on and on and on about the myriad of ways we willingly compound our problems and compromise our health KNOWINGLY making bad health choices. 

Now, I am no scientist, nor am I a doctor.  But I am also not an idiot.  Observation of what is happening all around us is quite clear if we are willing to open up our eyes and use our brains.  Our family has recently entered into the gluten free world.  And let me tell you what a difference just a few weeks can make.  Sleeping better, feeling better, no headaches, need less caffeine to function.  If you are interested in the many ways that it can affect you neurologically you should read the book, "Grain Brain". 

Again, I AM NOT A DOCTOR!!!  So, do yourself a favor and take a hard look at your own lifestyle.  How many things to do you choose to do that you KNOW aren't good for you?  Compound those choices over years and decades and where are you going to end up?  Not anywhere good. 

So why do we continually make bad choices even when we know clearly that there are consequences?

The problem is not a lack of knowledge and information, it is a problem of the heart!

Fundamentally there is something broken with us.  And it just isn't our physical health.  Every day we make self-centered and ultimately "bad" choices even when we know better.  Ever been in an argument with a significant other and you knew before you said something that you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT SAY IT?!?!?!  And then you did????  I mean, not that I would ever do that..... 

Our problem is a deep rooted in, soul level, problem.  And until we address the brokenness of our inner selves we will always be in an uphill battle against our bad choices.

In Matthew 13 Jesus begins to teach in parables.  His disciples, confused by his "confusing" style of teaching ask him why He is doing it.  To respond he quotes Isaiah...."You will keep hearing, but will not understand; you will keep seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become DULL.....Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, AND I would heal them"--Matthew 13:14-15

What do we need to get better?  To be healed?  To have our hearts changed.  Not just made a bit better, or, a bit healthier, but to become completely new! 

This past week we celebrated Easter.  Easter is the center of the Gospel.  Death was defeated by the finished work of Christ on the Cross.  What does this mean?  What is the inherent promise that is found in this act of total victory?  That because of Christ, our dead and unperceiving hearts can be brought to new life.  A life that can see, hear and experience healing!

When we allow God to change our hearts it is in Him that our choices begin to change permanently.  Instead of just jumping through a few specific hoops for an allotted period of time, our fundamental identity is something brand new.  We like to go on spiritual "diets" where we improve our behavior for a period of time.  But then we always come back to where we used to be.  This is because we never really perceived the depth of our problem. 

Stop lying to yourself.  Where you are is not good enough.  You have problems and issues that are compounding in your life every day.  You don't need better habits, you need a different heart.  And you can't build that yourself.  Only He can. 

And He will

We know what we need to change, but we can't seem to change it!

Why Starvation Diets Don't Work

Our bodies are miraculous things.  Always working, always thinking.  The body is a very logical machine.  It responds to, and prepares for, the things we do to it.  As more and more science confirms, how we eat, what we eat, when we eat, all can have profound affects upon the body.  At the center of all of this is one simple truth; Good food in, healthy body, bad food in, unhealthy body. 

Do you want to lose weight?  It's not about cutting calories, its about changing the very way you eat.  When we eat poorly our body responds to that by storing unhealthy stuff and our very cellular makeup health is diminished.  When we eat in a healthy way, we get healthy at a cellular level! 

The very worst thing you can do is to crash diet.  So many people starve themselves for long periods of time to lose weight.  And it works.  Stop eating for a few days and I guarantee you will lose weight.  And I won't even charge you 19.99 for that advice.  That ones for free!

So if it works, why is it so bad?

Our bodies are amazing machines.  It operates in response to what you are doing to it.  When you starve your body everything begins to shut down to survive.  And, what little it does get, it holds onto greedily.  So, after losing your desired weight, you start eating again.  Often, just like you were eating before.  But now your body has been tricked into hoarding.  Instead of dealing with the new influx of food efficiently it stores as much as it can possibly get to prepare it for what it assumes is some more starvation around the bend.

And so you gain it all back...and more than likely, gain even more.

So you starve again.

And you gain even more again.

Do you need a personal and visual illustration of this?  Check out the before and after photos of people who won the "Biggest Loser".  It is amazing how much weight they lose.  Now, look up photos of those people a year after the competition.  They have nearly all gained it back.  Why?  Because they weren't actually living and eating realistically.  The tricked their bodies into losing weight temporarily.  They didn't actually change their core lifestyle to create permanent health changes.

 Our physical realities are mirror images of our spiritual realities.  We often approach sin with this zero sum game mindset.  There are no fundamental forever changes taking place.  For brief periods of time we just eliminate sin.  And for a while it works.  We get our spiritual bodies prepared for Bikini Season, then we get lazy again.  Soon, it is all back.  Many times worse than it was before.

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  Then it says 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives it finds the house UNOCCUPIED, swept clean and put in order.  Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there.  And the final condition of that man is worse than the first"
          -  Matthew 12:43-45

Key word here; Unoccupied. 

We do good at starving our sin nature.  It is easy, for a period of "dieting" to eliminate sin behaviors.  Drink to much?  We stop going out for a few weekends.  Struggling with sexual sin?  Turn off the internet and stop returning those "phone calls" for a while.  And then we say, look, I am doing great!  And then we find ourselves right back where we started.

Like misguided yo-yo dieters we approach our spiritual health with the belief that simple elimination will fix the problem.  And the real solution is the same;  Change your diet permanently.

I have lost over 100 pounds in the last few years.  How?  I do not live like I used to.  Vegetables are a part of every meal.  Candy and treats are barely apart of my diet ever.  I fill up on healthy food all day long and it causes me to actually not crave bad food.  But, every time I go without food for a long period of time I find myself eating crappy food again.  The solution is to keep healthy food always going in.  When I do that, there is no room for the bad stuff. 

Jesus is teaching us an important truth.  It is one thing to get sin out of your life.  But if you don't fill up on Him, it will just come back.  Leaving your heart unoccupied is the sure fire way to invite any and all crap into it. 

Stop starving yourself to be Holy.  Start filling up on the good stuff.  Jesus said, Taste and see that I am good!  Just like changing your eating habits, it might be a challenge, but once you adjust, the bad stuff will make you feel sick to your stomach.

Sound familiar....spiritually?

The truth, the whole truth, but nothing of Truth

My four year old has a really odd sense of "fairness".  Basically, anything that he doesn't agree with is an indication of being unfair.  Time to eat dinner?  "You're not being fair".  Time to go to bed?  "You're not being fair".  Another common one is the argument about who gets to pick out a tv show between his little sister and himself. By a wide margin my son watches more of "his" shows.  But, let her watch one show that she requests and he is upset about it not being fair.

Clearly this is a problem and we are addressing it.  It has gotten to the point that he has been instructed to not even utter the phrase, "It isn't fair" at all.  He misuses and abuses it.  Here is the real issue though;  He emotionally feels as if what he is claiming is valid and right.  There is no self-introspection or willingness(yet) to accurately measure what is going on.  The feelings he feels are all the argument he needs to declare a statement of "Truth". 

The concept of Truth used to mean something to everyone.  Namely, that Truth was a non-negotiable and reliable claim about observable conditions and reality.  Seeking the Truth was a process of carefully and honestly appraising competing claims against the backdrop of known reality.  With each subsequent discovery of Truth becoming the building block and lens of which following observations must be weighed by.

Now truth has become a fluid and ever changing concept that is redefined daily based upon the desires and perception of those making the statements.  And to disagree with someone's personal statements of truth is the height of impropriety. 

The key factor in determining the truth of something(today) is how the statement effects you emotionally.  Facts, figures, logic, data points, etc, are all secondary in importance behind the emotional resonance of a particular truth claim.  And once you have emotionally made a decision on truth, the facts must be manipulated and conformed to that decision.

This is tyranny.

The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that, "The heart is deceitful above all things"(Jeremiah 17:9)  If you are honest with yourself, and I with myself, we will admit to the constant fluidity of our "feelings" on almost all subjects.  Our hearts and emotions are easily manipulated and rarely do those feelings find themselves safely rooted in non-negotiable truths. 

How would you like your spouse to make the marriage declaration to love you for better or for worse.....as long as they feel then like they do now.....

We need consistency and non-negotiability to safely navigate our relationships, jobs, cultures, physics, and, life in general.  When we become prisoners to the ever changing fickle nature of emotional reactionism we are truly under tyranny. 

But Adam, you say, our hearts and emotions aren't that terrible for making life decisions!!  You're being too critical.

No.  No I am not.

According to the CDC, half of all Americans will suffer at some point in their adult life from mental disorder issues of some sort.  Depression, bi-polarism, PTSD, addiction, etc.  So, in other words, half of every one you know and deal with will have at least some period of time in their lives where they could literally be incapable of making healthy decisions.  If someone is suffering from clinical depression, body dysmorphic disorder, PTSD, and any other number of deep seated issues that reside in chemical imbalances and other brain issues(that are OUTSIDE OF THEIR CONTROL) they are INCAPABLE of even being able to accurately evaluating the reality around them. 

So, how is basing "truth" on unreliable emotions not tyranny?

We need to stop being tossed around and reevaluating truth and our lives through the lens of finite emotional moments.  The hope we have is to root ourselves in absolute Truth.  And then, allowing our emotions to be shaped by Truth, instead of the other way around.

If you are a Christian, let me challenge you.  You aren't called to be "authentic" in your emotional responses and behaviors.  You are called to have integrity to live according to Truth, EVEN WHEN YOU AREN'T FEELING THAT WAY!!!

If you are not a Christian, let me challenge you.   What is Truth.  Big T, non-negotiable, set your clock by it Truth?  What dictates reality for you?  I am convinced that God is reliable and True, and that the Bible is Reliable and True.  Big T True.  It is a bulwark against fickle emotion based reality and a shelter from the storms of life.  If you have any questions, any thoughts, go ahead and ask!!!

Which will you choose?