Staying in Shape over the Holidays


The holidays are fast approaching. You may already have started your Christmas baking. You certainly have started planning out the details of your Thanksgiving feast. One thing is certain: The most yummy dishes usually contain ridiculous amounts of fat plus either sugar or salt. So basically the worse they are for you the better they make you feel. Indulgence adds pounds to our waste-lines and obesity is one of the main causes for so many diseases that kill so many. According to the Calorie Control Council, during the state-sanctioned gorging event known as Thanksgiving, the average American can stuff down as much as 4,500 calories — nearly twice the recommended daily allowance. Don’t we bring doom on ourselves with all this overeating?Even God Almighty seems to be joining the health-conscious choir:

“I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.”
(Ezekiel 34:16 – Watchword for the Week of Sunday 23 November 2014)

To be honest I have a problem with texts that proclaim “God will destroy the fat” or whatever group of people. They are so easily abused by hate-groups that put their own spins on them. I would much rather learn what God wants as opposed to what people condemn. So, on a positive note let me put our Thanksgiving feast back on the menu: God’s vision for the culmination of world history is that of all the peoples of the earth gathering on Zion for an everlasting heavenly feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines (Isaiah 25:6-8). After all Jesus ate with sinners and his disciples all the time – so much so that they called him a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19).

So if food is not the problem, what is? Our watchword this week contrasts the haves and the have-nots, the ones that are starving and homeless and those that are out of control in looking only after themselves. That is a problem in every aspect of life: If all your resources be they food, finances, feelings are all focused on just yourself then you are not open for the love of God and the love you are supposed to share with the people around you. That does not only go for overabundance: People starve themselves, emotionally and physically and overindulge in the pain and the feeling of being lost. I want to read this edgy text to call for a well balanced diet for all aspects of our lives. And literally every diet plan has cheat points or days. So enjoy!

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