Cinnabuns and God

Were you one of those people who used to write letters and send them in the mail?  Can you remember when there was no Facebook, or even email?  I remember those days very well.  And I think I wrote less in those days than now.  Still, I was always apologizing for not having written sooner.  So often a letter either I wrote or received began with, "Sorry I haven't written for so long.  I've been busy."  Well, I've still been busy, now in the days of blogging and Facebook.  I need to learn how to put the busyness into the blog.  Blogging helps make so much more sense of those busy times, so you know what you've been up to.

 Where I left you in the last post was that I had been having interesting thoughts a few months after I had to start eating healthily.  I lost a few pounds and people had and still have been noticing it!  How often in the years before had I thought about losing weight, but never more than a couple pounds went off, and every new year, after all the Christmas splurging, I had a few extra put on.  Year by year, the pounds seemed to invade my body, like germs.  But now that I was forced to eat differently, just as invisibly, the pounds were disappearing.  And my sinuses are - dare I say it? - healed!

This diet really works!  Not that I was rigid with it.  But I have been following it a lot more than I would have if the choice had been up to me.  So I was forced to admit that, given a choice, I would choose things to eat that were delicious and non-nutritious, even toxic to my body.  I guess, left on my own, I don't make such wise choices.  Yet, I claim to follow God.  I claim to be a disciple of Jesus.  I pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done" with absolute sincerity.  So what's wrong here?

I came to the conclusion that I'd  really been following my own will.  Doing what felt good felt good!  What else can I say?  If I still lived in the States I'd probably be eating Cinnabuns and watching TV every night, numbing my mind with uninspiring and uninspired entertainment, justifying it because I'd spent my day working so hard.  I know plenty of people who live like that.  That was pretty much my goal each time I went back home.  I'd fill up on all the junk food you can't get in Germany, things like Cinnabuns.  I remember going once to a mall, just to get a Cinnabun.  It was soft and mushy as a soft pillow, reminding me of floating in the heavens on a Charmin cloud.  The icing pierced my tongue with sweetness, and you could even get extra icing if the sugar shock hadn't sent you to the moon yet!  And that deep, dark, spicy cinnamon - it practically exploded the mush inside your mouth.  It felt and tasted wonderful in my mouth, but there were always those pounds on my hips to contend with.  And later sinus infections. 

Now, I have heard some mean things in my life about God and what happens to you if you seek to do God's will.  You might get sent to Africa as a missionary or something and then get eaten up by lions, like David Livingston.  Or go to South America and get your head whacked off by head hunters.  I didn't want this sort of life.  That sort of life didn't sound like much fun. So, at one point when I got brave enough to talk to God about what I really wanted, I told God I wanted to follow my own will for a while.  I needed to do this, since I had been clobbered over the head with sermons about sacrificing and doing God's will.  So now I was committed to my will, and then if I found that my will coincided with God's will, I would be more inclined to follow God.

Actually, it's been very interesting to find out where that has led me.  Into dis-ease.  Following the doctor's advice has led me into health.  Living a healthy lifestyle feels good.  I feel better this way.  I look better this way.  Could it be that the doctor's way is also God's way, and that this is the best way, after all?

There's a thought to leave you with until next time.