I would always prefer to be an encourager than criticize. This is especially true when speaking to my friends and co-laborers who serve as ministers of the gospel. But we are fallen and more often than not we also need to be challenged in areas where we need to be changed. I hope the following will be seen as an encouragement more than the words of a cynic. But the subject I am addressing has become an epidemic among ministers in the West, and particularly among those closest to me, Southern Baptist preachers.
If you are reading this and you are a minister, especially a Baptist one, I can predict something about you whether I have met you personally or not. Actually a few things:
You are fat. If you are that rare soul like my colleague Bruce Ashford and look like you need an IV to make it through the day (just kidding Bruce), you are overweight.
Your are FAT. Overweight. You like desserts more than devotion and junk food more than disciple making.
One more: you are fat. And now, mad at me. Be careful, because being fat and angry has “stroke” written all over it.
Okay, let’s be clear. I am with you. Yes, I have lost about 30 pounds, had to buy new pants and belts, and found suits I can wear that wouldn’t fit for a decade. But I am still at least 15 pounds overweight. So I am fat also.
But let’s stop excusing ourselves and grow up and be men, can we? We are fat. Obese. Overweight. Too much junk in the trunk and too much love for foods that are slowlyy at killing us. We are shepherds of the flock of God; is setting an example for those we lead of any importance to us at all? We can be angry at those rare preachers who have the metabolism of a field mouse or those who seem to have hours a day to lift weights while we are busy in ministry. But the truth is we have time to do what matters, and our health matters.
I realize Paul said bodily discipline is of little profit compared to godliness, but he did not say it is of no importance. He also charged us to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness.
Why does this matter?
Americans ate 4 pounds of cheese in 1909 and 32 in 2000, mostly in pizza (pizza is not a health food).
5% of youth and children were obese in 1971, 17% are now. That is not a healthy trend.
We ate 41 lbs of fats/oils in 1909 per person, and 79 in 2000. Almost double. Can anyone say McDonald’s?
Our children by some reports have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Not a small reason for this is the food, the junk we consume.
We have national standards for dog food but many school districts (and a ton of “Christian” private schools) have no health standards for their meals.
Some nutritionists call the South, which some still call the Bible Belt, the Stroke Belt because of the obesity rates.
A few suggestions:
Stop joking about how fat you and other preachers are. The Bible warns against gluttony, so enough of the inane ignorance of Scripture.
Shop at the edge of the grocery store where the food God made is found and less in the middle aisles where we fouled God’s food up with our processing.
Stop eating junk food. Imagine French fries more as a slow working poison and less as a temporary taste teaser. Or worse, as yet one more example of a self-indulgent culture obsessed with immediate satisfaction while ignoring long term (and eternal) matters.
Try this: get a book bag. Put 20-25 pounds of weights in it. Carry it wherever you go for a week. Then remember the feeling next time you want to eat a super sized candy bar or a big bag of chips in one setting.
See your food intake as a part of your sanctification. Let’s be honest; the more we value doing the right thing in all of life the more we will value doing right in the most important areas of life. Diet and exercise are NOT of greatest importance, but too many of us act as though it does not matter.
Get up off your tail and exercise. If you really are huge, man up and go see your doctor. Ask for help. I have talked to too many people in the healthcare profession who do not understand the disconnect between a “man of God” who also lacks discipline in the most fundamental areas of life.
Learn about nutrition. See this as a war, summon all your manly, competitive instincts (they are still there under all that lard), and fight! If you are really out of shape just start walking 30 minutes a day. Then try something like the Ten Minute Trainer by Tony Horton (just google it). If you can handle that, try Power90. That is what I did–it works! Do not jump into P90X or Insanity until you are really fit or you will hurt yourself or worse, you will become terribly discouraged.
Get a partner. Get someone who is not a quitter.
Make this a life trajectory changer, not a quick fix. I am changed for life. I will never eat quite the same as I once did. I will never not exercise. I have been bought with a price and I want to glorify God with my body.
Finally, if you are young and in decent shape, be aware of how quickly you can get yourself in a hole in terms of your health. See a close, holistic connection between your physical life and your spiritual life, and resist compartmentalizing your spirituality from everything else.
Yes, this is a soap box for me. Sorry. But I fear our proclivity to lift a fork more than a good book and to stop for fast food more than a quiet time will lead more than a few of us to both physical and spiritual disaster. We do not have to become elite athletes, but we should not be a couch potato either, should we?
Finally, here is the thing that drives me more than anything (except my own health) regarding this subject: there is a growing, national movement of healthier eating. We who follow Christ, who understand the Imago Dei and the call to glorify God, should be leading the way in demonstrating how following Christ changes everything, how Jesus makes all thing new.
Including the number on our bathroom scales.
