When clothing designers and tailors fit people for clothing, the scene is familiar. The person stands up nice and tall while they are measured up, down, back and forth, and around with a measuring tape. Unfortunately, for fat men, those measurements do not stay the same in all positions of the human body. When a man with a large midsection sits down, a phenomenal thing takes place. There is a compression, vertically, and an expansion, horizontally. The same shirt that fit comfortably around the belly when standing up is stretched to the limits upon sitting. In fact, the buttons oftentime seem poised to pop and fly at tremendous speeds toward the unsuspecting eye of an innocent bystander. For fat men’s clothes, I wish they would measure a man’s waist when sitting. The shirt I had on today was only a vivid reminder of my over-love for food.
I need to lose weight. I know it is not healthy, I know obesity will shorten my life, and I know I am not enjoying life as I should due to my excessive fat. Don’t let anyone tell you about being obese and healthy at the same time. It is not true. I was at one time skinny and in shape. I ran everyday and even completed two marathons. But depression set in, and I gave up. I don’t feel horrible all the time, but I do know what I am missing. I did feel much better when thinner. I did have much more energy.
But these are not my driving force, now. I am showing that I treasure food more than God right now. My body says that food satisfies me, God doesn’t. Or, if he does, not all the time. Obesity leads to laziness. Don’t tell me it is not so. I know. I am there. Proverbs 6:6-11 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-11 and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
How about Proverbs 23:20-21 20Do not mix with winebibbers, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; 21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. Pretty plain, is it not? Proverbs 25:16 says Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, Lest you be filled with it and vomit. Have we found honey in our nation of plenty? What do we do with it? We gorge on it, without thought for the gift-giver and the one from whom it came.
Perhaps the most plain explanation, however, is Proverbs 25:28. Here we see that the root is a lack of self-control. Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.
I am wasting my life in this area. I am not showing God to be glorious. I show food to be glorious. I don’t treasure him, I treasure what he has provided. Repentance will not solve this overnight. My habits can change today, but the effects hang on my frame. May God grant me grace to bring him honor in this. I don’t want to waste it. He must overcome some very real physical challenges and make some very real physical changes for this to take place. May God show his glory here.
