Appetite: This is WAR!

A strange thrill welled up in me as Ginger shared facts she’d read in The China Study. She wanted to make dietary changes. I had an involuntary response of excitement even though I knew her intentions would spell doom for some of my favorite foods. Still, like light spilling through a cracked doorway, her resolve planted hope in my heart for increased and improved years together.

In the following days a darker thrill tickled my brain. I now had a mandate to consume all the junk food in the house “just to tidy things up a bit.” I, of course, started with the chocolates.

Things were going along swimmingly until my sleepless night (not yet ended) brought me back to my senses. Whether my aching head, nauseous stomach, and chilled, tingly hands were a migraine, a bug picked up from a niece, or direct divine retribution for my dietary sins, I care not a whit! The great gift given me by all the pain was a reborn resolve to return to the first thrill: maximizing my health as a loving response to the One who gave me this physical machine I have so often abused.

I lay awake with head throbbing, repeating memory verses… not as penance, but as claims upon the grace of a God Whom I desire more than life. They seemed to shine in the inky air around me revealing Him as the Coach He has always wanted to be. Here are three of them.

“Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in His ways. He guides the humble in what is right … Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. … The LORD confides in those who fear Him…” (Psalm 25:8-14). God is good and therefore always eager to be my Teacher. All I have to do is be willing to learn and then practice. He will even confide in me. What a thrilling thought!

However, I know how strong my appetites are. I know how many ways I find to justify doing exactly as I want. Once the appetite comes up—whether it is for food or a new surround sound speaker system—I can find ways to justify gratifying it. I have a thousand ways to wander onto a side trail just long enough for my desire to attain an innocent glow. So here’s what the Word says: “…each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). In the middle of the night with a splitting head, a sloshing stomach, and shaky, clammy hands; it was easy for me to imagine a doctor bending close so his words would penetrate my fog, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing modern medicine can do for your sorry carcass at this point in your deterioration.”

I knew that in the morning this would make an amusing story, but I am aware that that kind of amusement is just one more way I avoid making good on promises, or avoid making promises in the first place. I also knew, even there in the middle of a painful night, that I would survive and that no One was asking me for promises. In the midst of the pain I was actually joyful for the reminder of that earlier thrill—the thrill of better choices and improved futures. In truth a few more chocolates wouldn’t destroy me, but the continued suppression of a more godly will could.

After three hours the symptoms slowly began to abate, and I lay there happily talking with the One who loves me and puts up with so much of my garbage and duplicity. I promised Him (and me!) that in the light of day, when this night seemed light-years away and somewhat laughable I’d laugh if I wanted, but I would also make an immediate start to eliminate the enemy… and not “eliminate” in the digestive way I’d been planning!

Oh that hurt! Even in my bed the unfinished See’s chocolates called to me from the pantry downstairs. Their siren song was sweet and pleading. It begged me to be reasonable, not rash! I mourned for the untasted. I was angry that I’d not wolfed them down prior to this night of conviction. But when I finally realized the horror that my 56-year-wise brain was a slave to the worm of desire, then the whole scene changed.

The chocolaty, nutty morsels in my pantry were only the foot soldiers of the slaver I have sworn to resist. There are a billion more of his pawns out there on shelves in shops all over the U.S. If I give in to these invaders in my own home… no, “finishing them off” as militaristic as it sounded, would only be one more step in “finishing me off.”

I won the battle on my mattress and immediately felt liberated from the food and the sound system. I can be a son of the Most High, not amused with these trivial appetites. Unfortunately, I’ve been a pretty poor soldier. Many of the mental fortresses I have constructed have actually sheltered me from His gentle pleadings. Perhaps He did use the night of pain to weaken my defenses just enough for me to claw my way out into daylight.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). It’s not about food, it’s about allegiance.