God can use any situation to teach us a lesson or two. Recently, God has used my adherence to a strict healthy lifestyle to teach me a few. For me, it was the healthy lifestyle, the food and exercise, that taught me these lessons. It could be any other number of things for you in your life, so feel free to fill in the blanks from my story with whatever unbalanced focuses you might see in your own life, whether it be a relationship, work, pleasure and entertainment, or anything else.
I am very blessed to not be required to follow any particular diet plan for health reasons, and my heart goes out to anyone who does. What motivated my decision to become a health foodie was that I have a nagging desire to want to get the most out of life. I think many of us do. In my mind, and most certainly with a great deal of cultural and Millennial influence, choosing to embrace a healthy lifestyle was one of the best ways to do so.
There is such a focus in the culture on attaining to a certain level of effort and perfection, largely placed on lifestyle choices such as diet. We are directly and indirectly led to believe that eating healthy food and exercising regularly translates to living life to the fullest. Looking back, I regretfully was answering “Diet and exercise!” to the question “What is life all about?” It consumed me. It required so much reading, preparation, sacrifice, money, time, and commitment. All of what I had read from the sources I esteemed most stated that certified organic, raw, free-range, grass-fed, local, unprocessed, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free items were the way to go to restore good health and live a long, happy life.
I am one of those people that dives in head first and gives 100% to something once I finally decide upon it. So, that’s exactly what I did. For six months, I was rigorous. My main intentions were to get a better immune system by healing my gut, clearing up acne, feeling more energetic and losing weight. I spent literally thousands of dollars on food items and supplements. Healing protein and collagen mixes. Fermented, dairy-free milk products. Organic, free-range, antibiotic-free meats and eggs. Filtered water only. Raw, local honey. Vegetables by the bushels. Vitamins in bulk. Yoga, cardio and weight lifting five to six days a week. And on and on and on – I had it down.
To be completely honest, I loved it for a while. I loved the foods, and I definitely felt better. I believe I gained the most benefit from psychologically filling a self-created void I had felt when I was not making perfect diet and activity choices. Was I caring for my body well? Oh yes. Was I complying with primary care doctor and cardiologist and nutritionist and oncologist and dentist and personal trainer and weight loss expert and health blogger recommendations? Yes I was. Therefore, I derived even more psychological benefit knowing I was doing absolutely everything I researched that could apply to health, wellness, and weight loss. Though burnout might have been expected after expending so much effort, I didn’t experience it.
What finally got me to stop and evaluate my choices was God graciously showing me that the emptiness I was trying to fill and the need for fulfillment was still there, I had just done a great job of covering it up for a while. I had etched out a large part of my life that was apart from God, and I was trying to control it on my own. I have a propensity for controlling things. It hasn’t yet turned out positively. And I’m finally starting to realize it. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.” Words to live by.
God is the One in control, and He wants to fill my voids. He’s more than capable of doing it too. The culture told me that I’d be good enough if I lost my excess weight. The culture told me that I’d only be healthy if I ate organic. The culture told me that I needed to focus a great amount of time, energy and money on my body in order to attain the ideal. The culture’s idea of ideal looked logical and my pride told me it was also doable. So, I bought in to the ideology without looking to God for His wisdom.
Ideology has proven to be a sort of pitfall for me. I define ideology as holding to a viewpoint created by the one needing motivation from it to achieve a perceived ideal. I’ve bought in to many different ideologies on what makes life full and happy. God trumps our ideologies. Though perhaps bold, I would assert that ideology is most appropriately applied in areas that have a long-term, broader, less personal outcome such as politics, corporate goals or movements that benefit from having a common, unifying factor. Ideology became a pitfall for me on a personal level because I began to view day-to-day life only by what was ideal. If it wasn’t, discontentment, disappointment, shame and ingratitude ensued. If it did, perfect happiness, fulfillment and self-esteem would follow. Or so I told myself.
I actually can’t say for sure since I’ve never experienced anything ideal. I can tell you for sure that non-ideal circumstances absolutely feel that way when you make yourself dependent upon everything being perfect before you can be happy. Personal ideologies have the tendency to make chameleons out of us because we become set on doing what gives us the next high, makes us feel fulfilled or could make us happy. And that will always change over time. That mindset prevents us from making intentional, purposeful choices that have solid, eternal bearings. It prevents us from simply being Christian. It complicates everything for the worse. It steals our peace.
Our motivation as Christians should be to glorify God with our bodies, our actions and our hearts. But I’d forgotten. He has already designed, planned and created the ideal for us. However, it has taken me a long time to identify the distinction between God’s ideal and my ideal. That distinction is in the ever-human pitfall of flesh versus spirit, as old as Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:4-6). We think of what we want life to be here on earth. We tell ourselves we can only be happy if our circumstances or the results of our choices lead to what we desire them to be. For me, I was telling myself that if I got the diet just right and was trying hard enough, I’d finally feel the way I wanted to feel – one of several options I’ve chosen over time.
We tell ourselves Romans 8:28 means that God will make our lives good. Then, we try to block out the gaping contradictions of a Christian suffering for years from disease or a child dying from cancer. There is no contradiction. God has already made our lives good in death, in suffering, in loneliness and in lack. The same hope in Romans applied to those mentioned in Hebrews 11:35-38 who were chopped in two or forced to live in holes in the ground. The scriptures say they accepted it to obtain a better resurrection which was in the next life. Just below verse 28, Romans 8:35-39 points away from a good earthly life and to a good eternal life. Our hope, our good, our IDEAL rests in God’s love, His presence, His promises to us, His saving us and His drawing us to Him through all of eternity. How good we have it today is not at what life is all about.
It has finally hit me that attaining to an ideal in this life takes away from the focus I could have on enjoying the ideal already given to me. No need to attain, try, suffer through or be discouraged by trying to achieve in this life. Practically speaking, life is a vapor, and I only have so much mental energy to give. I’m tired of trying to attain my version of perfection. I’m at peace when I choose to think of life through God’s ideal and not my own. Though eating and exercising is just a part of life, it became my biggest focus and God used it to teach me some important things about perfection, seeking His kingdom first and the power of where we allow our mind to settle. Are you adhering to an ideology that focuses on your own ability? Are you seeking an ideal that lifts you up and not God? Are you expending any effort trying to fill a void in your heart? Only God can give you what you’re looking for.
I will choose to take good care of myself as part of being a good steward of my temple (body) and intend to eat healthy (maybe organic even) and exercise regularly. But my mindset and motivation has changed completely. I am now motivated to take care of my body as long as I’m given the ability because I can glorify God by doing so. Ah, the satisfaction only He can give!
By Rachel Wilkie
