Recently, a new friend has been sharing with me some of the issues that come in dealing with her diabetes.

My son, Elijah, is sick with an inner-ear infection that required my wife, Diana, to make an ER visit on Sunday during church.

Diana herself is 25-weeks pregnant, and saw her obstetrician yesterday; this pregnancy that has had a number of issues that have made us nervous.

I’m just getting over an upper respiratory infection that required me to get myself to an urgent care clinic on Saturday.

All of this medical-related stuff has prompted me to be thinking about health and wellness quite a bit lately, and I have come to a few conclusions.

First, health is really important. Obviously this isn’t a true surprise to anyone reading this, but relatively few of us truly live our lives in a way that highlights being healthy as one of our core intents. Our lack of commitment to live active lifestyles betrays our knowledge of the simple things it takes to be healthy in general. In America, we have a higher average lifespan than ever, but our quality of life (distinct from our quality of lifestyle) is lower, in a sense. We aren’t dying due to many of the things that used to kill us; now we just suffer through chronic conditions. Most of these conditions are things that can be prevented by proper diet and exercise, but that seems to be too much for many people to bother with. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. Just like many churches who focus far too much on growing their facility, many of us have undertaken a “building expansion project” on our temples. In America, where food and processed “food products” are abundant, we’ve forgotten that what we consider a basic meal would have been considered gluttony by a first century believer. Beyond that, portions that we should still consider gluttony today are common. It’s a sad state of affairs when a national restaurant chain, launches an advertising campaign touting a special new menu with “smaller portion entrees.” We truly live in a land of excess.

Second, I am more interested in my health than ever before. I think that having kid(s) has made me realize that I’m not a kid myself anymore, and thus, I’m responsible for my health. It isn’t just that I need to take care of myself because no-one else is going to, but also because, God forbid, if something were to happen to me it would be incredibly hard on Diana, Elijah, and our little girl on-the-way. The reality that I care about my own health more now than in years past is shown in the fact that I went to the urgent care immediately upon finding myself sick. In the past, I’d try to “man-up” and just suffer through it, which is a stupid-yet-common way men deal with illness. I also find myself, through work at the hospital and articles on the Internet, reading a fair amount of material relating to healthcare and preventative medicine. In fact, I’m not just reading it, but I’m being convicted by it, and that leads me to my last conclusion.

Third and finally, I’m horribly unhealthy. I could say that I’m big boned, or overweight, but the reality is that I’m obese. I’ve struggled with weight since, as a kid, I quit playing hockey and baseball, and became a computer geek. Over the past few years I’ve relaxed some of my computer geek focus to become a theology geek. I love being a geek, but generally the concentration and commitment involved in earning geek cred involves sitting on one’s rear and reading lots of stuff so as to internalize it in such a way that is can be brought back up and interacted with at will. As a byproduct of that information intake process, I also often took part in a caloric intake process that included sugary drinks and high carbohydrate and fatty snacks. While I was in college I also was a cook at the college’s cafeteria, and that job helped me pack on the weight as much as anything. Since getting out of college, and moving up here, I’ve managed to pack on a few more pounds as well. Between being a new father, the ministry, the job, and a variety of other things, I’ve been keeping crazy hours and using caffeine to augment my natural abilities. I’ve told myself that because I have ADHD, and some studies have shown that caffeine helps people with ADHD that it’s no problem that I drink Jolt, Amp, and all those fun calorie-filled drinks. But in truth, I’m just addicted. It’s enough to kill a guy. Literally.

So those are my three conclusions. It’s a damning scenario I’ve managed to get myself into, and I do take responsibility for my actions (read: sins) that have gotten me this far into physical bankruptcy. I can’t continue like this. I’m convicted about it. And as Mark Driscoll has said (paraphrasing a bit) the only correct response to conviction is repentance.

It’s impossible for someone to snap their fingers and end years of bad habits and addiction in the strength of their own flesh. However, as Romans 8:13 says, I intend to yield to the Holy Spirit and in doing so, put to death the deeds of my body. I’m submitting to Christ in an area of my life that I now realize I never have before, something not just temporal (as in unhealthy food) but spiritual (as in food being an idol) as well. That said, I ask for the prayers of my friends and other readers, that I would successfully yield to God, end my food idolatry, and begin the long process of getting healthy.

Many of you who read this know that October has been designated “Pastoral Appreciation Month” by some random group of individuals. The same group of greeting card industry executives who created Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and Grandparents Day probably created it, but I digress.

October is supposed to be a thirty-one day span of time in which Christians go out of their way to bless and encourage the spiritual overseers God has given to the Church. In general I’ve always enjoyed Pastoral Appreciation Month. I’ve been fortunate to sit under the teaching of a number of respectable pastors over the years, so blessing them during this time of the year was always a delight.

Last November I was installed as a Pastor at North Country Fellowship. That means that this October it was a new paradigm: I was on the receiving side.

Many of the common gifts for Pastors include ties, pens, and Bibles. All are good gifts, but ties aren’t me at all. A number of people in the church know that I have more Bibles than the local Christian bookstore. Actually, I did get an incredibly cool engraved pen, and I love it! However, the church didn’t just stop there… They blessed not just me, but my whole family; Diana, Elijah, and our baby-on-the-way.

The church bought us a 1998 Buick LeSabre with 50,000 miles.

It. Is. Totally. Incredible.

Diana and I had been praying about how we would be able to fit two baby seats and two adults into a ‘96 Neon. We hadn’t really told anyone we were concerned, but we just weren’t sure how we were going to make it happen since we don’t have the cash to buy a new car right now.

We are so blessed…

I’ve joined my friends Calvin and Mandy in taking the “What Kind of Reader Are You?” quiz.

Results:

Jenny failed me.

At least she was nice to talk to. Unfortunately she just didn’t come through. Despite her efforts, the iWork package was still shipped to the physical address. I ended up having to call FedEx and then go track down the truck in some industrial park across the city. But… I got it!
For the record, iWork ‘08 is a fantastic piece of software.

As a bonus, and one that makes the whole frustrating thing worth while, on Tuesday I received an email from Apple with a serial number for iWork. You know, the thing I had tried to purchase the previous Friday? So now I have two legal licenses for the software, and one boxed set. I’m likely going to be gifting the additional serial number to the church, so we can run Keynote off the back computer instead of having Pastor Mike and I use up our laptops when we preach.