How much do you think about what you eat?
Today I want to link two apparently unrelated topics.
Topic #1
I’m typically not good about eating healthy. I’m desperately searching for a dietician who’ll endorse my belief that Oreos should be a basic food group. So far, no luck.
However, as I train for a 1500-mile bike ride, I’m cranking more miles more frequently. I’m discovering that I have to eat differently if I want to maintain eight hundred miles per month for the next three months. Ice cream just won’t suffice.
Topic #2
My friend’s eighty-five-year-old grandfather lives alone. He won’t move from his house, won’t allow anyone to help, and rarely goes out except for a quick meal—alone. He’s still quite sharp mentally, but he’s chosen to isolate himself. Very sad.
When his wife died about eighteen months ago, he turned on his television to news talk. He hasn’t turned it off since—literally. Twenty-four hours a day, even while he sleeps, he’s bombarded with conflict and stories of doom and disaster.
This poor man used to be cheerful, outgoing, and friendly. He’s become frightened, discouraged, and utterly hopeless. He trusts no one and won’t allow even family members to get close because he fears they’ll harm him or steal from him.
In my admittedly warped mind, these topics connect. Do you see it?
The link
We all understand the impact of what we put into our bodies. I’d love a BIG MAC and fries, but my bike rides will suffer if I give in to that temptation too often. That’s not news to anyone.
But it seems to me that my friend’s grandpa has fed his mind and heart an eighteen month diet of mental and emotional junk food. He’s force-fed himself a constant stream of negative, frightening, overly-sensationalized garbage. The result is a tragedy—a mind poisoned by angry rhetoric and a heart shriveled by fear.
I thought about this as I listened—briefly—to what passed for political “discussion” over the weekend. I suppose I should care—I DO care about the outcome—but I’ve decided it’s simply not healthy to feed my brain that sort of diet.
For me, listening to and participating in the name-calling, blaming, and finger-pointing is equivalent to mentally eating from a dumpster. If that’s what it takes to be “involved,” count me out.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8
I think this verse is Scripture’s instruction to eat our mental vegetables. It’s the spiritual food pyramid.
It’s God telling us what really nourishes our minds, hearts, and souls.
We all know about diets. What would a healthy mental, emotional, spiritual diet look like?
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