Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. John 2:19-21
When I went to yoga class the other night, I wore a pair of yoga pants that I haven’t worn since before Christmas. They were unexpectedly tighter than they were a month ago. Well, by unexpectedly, I mean that I was surprised, though I should have expected it considering that I have been a human vacuum for chocolate and sweets lately. Offer me a piece of candy? Why, yes, I will. And I walk off with the entire package. A cup of tea? Three sugars please. How about a slice of Danish? Or two. Or three. At Thanksgiving, I was health conscious, serving roasted sweet potatoes instead of a casserole covered in brown sugar and pecans. I roasted carrots instead of making sugar loaded carrot soufflé and broccoli instead of covering in cream of mushroom soup. But, something happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I went off the rails. Big time. So, when I stretched out on the floor and my belly rose out of my pants like refrigerated dough popping from a can, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But, there it lay, a mass of quivering pink flesh halfway between my pants and my shirt. No matter how hard I tried to cover it up, it insisted on being shown the entire room of skinny yoga people. What to do with it? How to deal with it? With my goal of being more like Jesus, my first thought was not, change my diet, but the old, sometimes misused, adage, “what would Jesus do?” That phrase was not a product of marketers in my generation but actually, popularized in 1896 in a book called “In His Steps” written by Charles Monroe Sheldon. In this novel, preacher, Henry Maxwell asks his congregation to take one year and ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” before making any decision. The question changes the hearts and lives of not only his congregation, but his entire town and even, beyond. When I asked myself, “what would Jesus do?’, I immediately thought of his anger at the money changers in the temple. He drove them out because they were cheating the people who came to worship and is quoted as stating that the temple had been turned from a house of prayer to a den of thieves. What does that have to do with my weight? If as Jesus states, our body is a temple, created by God to honor him, and instead I have misused my “temple” by over indulging in rich, unhealthy foods, then, aren’t I as guilty as the money changers? Would He be just as angry at me? So, then, the answer to “What would Jesus do?” is that He would be careful of what He ate. He would take care of His body by getting exercise, rest and proper nutrition. So, that’s what I am going to do. I don’t have a list of what I can or can’t eat. Instead before eating, I will ask myself, “What would Jesus do?”
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