I have not written on this site for a while as I was working on my education, raising a child that was not mine as a single dad, getting laid off, going into full-time ministry, getting married, and writing and publishing a book. Let’s just say I was busy. One interesting thing, though, is that the word busy is, by definition, a four-letter word. We can easily take it to mean a full life, which may be true, but even a full life can focus us in the wrong direction. Perhaps, more correctly, it can let us miss things we should focus on. 

One of those things I should have focused on was my health. As I was climbing the ladder of age and really wishing I could miss a rung or two, I was so focused on the effect of my life and who I was ministering to that I was running on empty most of the time. I should have seen it coming as a pastor, but I did not. I was eating far less healthy food at all the wrong times. I would snack on treats, have dessert, and then follow it up with a caramel latte. It was far too easy to eat 3000+ calories a day and not even really enjoy them.

On top of that, the sum total of my exercise regime was to make sure my kid had lunches, got to school on time, find some odd jobs, look for work, work on my resume, etc. I am 5 foot 11 ½ (the ½ matters to my ego) and got up to 320 pounds. My expected weight, according to my doctor is 180 pounds and realistically should be around 200 pounds (again, important to my ego). I lost some and gained it back, lost more, and gained some back. I settled somewhere around 275 and felt ok with it. When I went on mission trips, I would drop 20-25 pounds and then put it back on when I got back. My busy life gave me the perfect excuse to be lazy in how I treated my body. 

I have been a Chaplain at a hospital for about 3 years. Many patients I visited there were in drastic conditions either directly related to or tangentially related to diet and exercise. That didn’t even really deter me. Then, God gave me a wake-up call. I went to the dentist and he took my blood pressure before doing a cleaning in case he needed to numb me. The machine beeped like it was winning the lottery. It read 175/120. His eyes lit up, and then he said the machine was inaccurate as it was on my wrist, so he put a cuff on my arm. The adjusted number was 154/95. I went home thinking I just needed to relax more, but then God called back. I was about 294 pounds then. A friend of mine who is younger than me had a stroke and was hospitalized. I went to visit him, and it turned out, unbeknownst to him, this was his second stroke. The doctor told him his blood pressure was the cause. His numbers were similar to mine.

So I went to the doctor, had a blood panel and tests, and was diagnosed pre-diabetic and having Hypertension 2. My doctor put me on medicine and said clearly to fix the diet. I finally listened to God. It has been a difficult road, but I have seen good results in the first few months and great ones in the last few. I am down to 241 today, and both my A1C and my blood pressure are back to normal readings without needing medicine anymore. The journey is not over; it has just started. I still have weight to lose and need to keep it off. 

I could stop there and say I have learned a lesson and am working on it, but that is only half the battle. As a Christian and pastor, I really need to address the spiritual side of this. We have all heard our bodies are temples since we were kids, but the aphorism is really a biblical mandate. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul deals with sexual morality issues with the Corinthian church. He tells them they need to pay attention to what they allow their bodies to be part of. In verses 19-20 he says clearly that our bodies are given to us by God and are equal to the temple for the Spirit to reside in. We are to honor God with how we use them. This is talking about a lot more than just sexual immorality. I am not trying to make anyone feel bad about having Cheetos, but I can say without reservation I was in sin with how I treated my body, and I needed to fix that. And I am. 

The temple of God does not have to be at 6% body fat and be able to run a 4.1 second forty. It does, however, need to be healthy, and where I was at, I was not healthy nor was I honoring God. Somewhere between those extremes is the right answer for all of us. My question is simple. Where is God calling you to be at, and what can you do to make that happen? You can see a little of my journey below.