Diet

How to Improve Your Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit

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Living the life God intended...Ever feel out of whack?

Beginning at the Fall, mankind has been mangled as a being. A dead spirit, chaotic soul, dumbed-down mind, and a body that wastes away—not too promising, eh?

All of us struggle with the integration and integrity of body, mind, soul, and spirit. So here are a few suggestion for Christians for improving ourselves for the King and His Kingdom. If practiced regularly, these things will keep us sharp for the Lord.

Body

Sleep no less than seven hours a night. Too few of us get proper sleep, never making up the sleep deficit we accumulate. This make us dull and easily swayed by ungodly voices.

Get up at dawn and go to sleep before midnight. God made the day and night for a reason. I’m convinced that one of the reasons that so many people suffer from depression today is that they don’t get enough sleep or they stay up too late. I know that my own mood brightens when I go to bed before midnight and get proper sleep.

Stop overeating. Almost two-thirds of American are overweight. From what I’ve seen in the pews, I’d say that three-quarters of Christians over the age of 30 are. Gluttony is a sin. Being fat makes us sluggish and slow. Plus, it incurs a litany of health problems. (Charles Spurgeon may have been a godly man and a great preacher, but his issues with eating shortened his life.) God doesn’t want his people to live that way.

Stop eating bad food. Junk food makes us fat—don’t eat it. Buy organic. Cut out the sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. Stay away from artificial ingredients, especially man-made sweeteners like aspartame (NutraSweet) and sucralose (Splenda). Keep the carbohydrates down (see this and this). The closer a food is to its natural state, the better it is for you, so stay away from the heavily processed stuff. God knew what He was doing with the basic foods He gave us. Why then do we have to mess them up?

Get out of the chair and exercise. Walking is one of the best ways to stay fit—do it. And with someone else!

Mind

Read a book! Though the study numbers don’t always agree on the exact numbers, the truth remains that the majority of Americans don’t read books, with some never picking up another book after they graduate from high school or college. That’s horrifying! An uneducated populace only makes Satan’s job easier, as ignorance is one of his chief weapons against us. (Remember that Adam’s intellect was perfect before the Fall.)

Learn the basics of logic. Don’t know a genetic fallacy from a tu quoque? Though our culture no longer values right thinking, Christians must. Learn more here.

Get out of the Christian ghetto and find out more about an opposing viewpoint. Narrowmindedness begins when we fail to grasp all sides of a belief system. None of us should spend time wallowing in filth, but if we fail to recognize those worldviews that set themselves up against Christ, we do the Kingdom a disservice.

Kill two birds with one stone and engage another face-to-face concerning a difficult topic. Wrestling with tough issue is fine. But doing so with another person or a group of people fulfills the “iron sharpens iron” idea in Proverbs. If we isolate ourselves, we fail to learn from our neighbors—and they may have great wisdom to share with us. And let’s not be selfish with what we learn; share it with someone else. Who knows how that wisdom may help another! Too many Christians bury their intellectual talents and they never grow to bless others. If that great book we’re reading isn’t used by us to challenge others, then perhaps we’re wasting our time.

Soul

Learn empathy. Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with those who rejoice. We must make our lives available to others and share in their ups and downs. We’ll never learn what it means to be godly people if we don’t connect with others.

Listen to classical music. Yes, Mozart and guys like him. It’s good for us.

Write music, also. Even if it’s just a simple tune, we can reflect the heart of the God who sings over us.

Write letters. Write them to God. Write them to friends. Write them to strangers. But write! Our letter may be the only one someone gets in a month. Make the most of it.

Cultivate beauty. We need to make beautiful things. God is an artist, and we are made in His image, so we should create. Also, we must find beautiful places filled with beautiful items and spend time amid that beauty.

Get in touch with the land. God intends that we till the land and take care of it. Are we doing so? Why not? Find time for the natural world. Learn the names of plants, trees, birds, and such.

Get out of the house! If we’re spending all our time shut up within our personal fortresses, we’ll never make an impact for the Kingdom out there where the lost people and our fellow Christians live.

Spirit

Pray more than an hour a day. We simply cannot know God if we toss off a prayer or two. Remember: knowing God IS eternal life. And this is not “practicing the presence” or journaling, either, but concentrated prayer on our knees.

Read the Bible intently. I recommend this plan. We should be reading for deeper discipleship and understanding, not just to tick “Read the Bible” off our checklists!

Cultivate godly horizontal relationships with others. With Christians: fellowship, service, and discipleship. With unbelievers: friendship, service, and evangelism.

Ruthlessly eliminate those things that interfere with our spiritual lives. If we don’t have enough time to pray an hour a day, read the Bible thoroughly, and cultivate horizontal relationships with others, then we need to eliminate all interferences. Turn the TV off, put down the newspaper, and log off the Internet. And if materialism and idolatry are keeping us from God, then we eliminate those items that keep us from growing in grace.

Practice the spiritual disciplines. We can’t help but grow in the Lord if we pray, study, meditate, fast, embrace solitude, practice submission, live simply, serve others, worship, confess our sins, seek guidance, and celebrate.

If we do these things, we will most certainly be better for the doing.

Now, how do you nourish your body, mind, soul, and spirit?

Weighty Matters

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But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
—1 Corinthians 9:27

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d spoken with several men who had become diabetic in their fifties. This, in part, prompted me to examine my own dietary habits and make some small corrections.

After one month on a low-glycemic diet, I’m 22 pounds lighter. I’m only three pounds from my target weight. That’s astonishing to me. One month.

A few other things boggle me:

  • I made only small changes in my diet.
  • I didn’t even do the tough first phase of the diet, but slid right into the maintenance phase.
  • The amount of energy I have right now is unbelievable.
  • I’m not craving snacks at all.
  • I’m eating less and not feeling hungry later on.
  • My wife tells me I’m sleeping better; I think she’s right. I’m no longer dragging by 5:00 p.m.
  • Anyone can do this if they so choose.

I’m not diabetic, nor was I overweight by more than a couple pounds (according to the BMI index, but then it’s a bit off for really massive guys like me). 'Got more chins than Chinatown...'But I felt run-down and lethargic at the weight I was. Now I’m right where I should be. Feels great.

What did I change? Well, all processed food pretty much got eliminated. This wasn’t hard because I eat a lot of natural foods anyway. I’ve been eating whole grains for more than 25 years, so I was ahead of that curve. I also eat organic meat and dairy as much as it’s possible. I don’t drink soft drinks except on rare occasions, so no sacrifice there. In the end, I mostly cut back on sugar and processed snack foods. I have a soft spot for baked goods, and that was the major sacrifice and probably the largest source of sugar in my diet. Goodbye, cookies!

As much as Splenda seems to be the non-sugar sweetener of choice, I prefer God’s sweeteners to man-made junk. I don’t need Splenda’s chlorine, a massive oxidizer, tearing up my cells. Instead, I’ve used luo han guo, agave nectar, and erythritol as my sweeteners. They all seem to do fine and have been readily available, though not cheap. Still, the benefits are obvious. If you want to know more about these three natural sweeteners, drop me an e-mail.

So I’m feeling great.

All this has a point, too.

I wrote earlier this week about our consumptive habits in the United States, habits that are wiping out a lot of us spiritually. Our addiction to consumerism breeds a spiritual malaise that blinds us to the needs of others and cuts us off from relationships, which ultimately—I believe—leads to depression and a lack of concern for the things of God.

What (and how) we eat forms part of that consumptive cycle that we Christians need to fix. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to possibly wind up a diabetic some day. It’s that I couldn’t let my own wants rule me. My desire to pack my plate had to end. My desire to ignore the four servings of Oreos in my hand needed to die. Sure, I ate mostly good stuff to begin with, but those few vices left me feeling drained.

And that’s the way it is in one’s spiritual life. That small thing which is anti-God will inevitably own us, only to destroy us later. You can take that spiritual principle to the bank. I wouldn’t even have space to quote all the Scriptures that allude to that truth, so God must think it important.

The strangest thing of all about losing this weight is that I have more of a thirst for God than ever before. I’m not going to go so far as to say that some Doritos now and then impaired my spiritual life, but I’m not going to say it didn’t, either. No one has to let anything rule them other than the Lord, and His yoke is easy, His burden light.

I’ve always thought the following quote comes truly God-inspired. Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles, wrote this:

Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.

I would personally substitute “spirit” for “mind” in that wisdom, but the point remains.

If a time of testing hunkers on the horizon for the Church, we can’t be a bunch of couch potatoes, either spiritually or physically. Living a sober life means we’re ready at a moment’s notice for what the Lord desires of us. God has always told his people to be alert and ready. But if we’re so fried because of what we eat or what we own or what we let control us that’s not of God, then what chance do we of being ready for whatever God would ask us to do?

We Christians cannot become so plugged into our electronics, so obsessed with the material, so stuffed to the gills with garbage food that we’ll be asleep from overconsumption when the Lord knocks on the door and asks that we follow Him where He’s leading us.

Folks, we’ve got to cut the ties that bind us. Those ties come in a number of bright, shiny packages, all of which diminish us. I know what mine are, and I’m learning every day how to sever them for the sake of the King and the Kingdom.

So what’s holding you back?