Fill Me Up
It’s funny to think how subconsciously we fill our bodies up with things that we are going to regret later. For instance, anybody that knows me knows that I probably had the worst eating habits possible in high school. My pre-game meal for basketball and track was 2 plain McChickens, a large fry, and a medium chocolate shake from the McDonalds up the street from our high school (…and truth be told, you probably just threw up a little bit in your mouth). It’s crazy to imagine but I was actually good after eating that; the only time I’ve ever had stomach problems in a game was when we played Lower Richland my senior year and the line for McDonald’s was rediculously long and I ended up having to play on a Snickers bar. Needless to say we got trashed that game but not because I was the team but generally, whether I scored a good portion of the points or not, I set the tone for my team usually by hustling and I was not nourished to the point where I could fulfill my role.
Well when you consider what the Bible says about how we should fill and nourish our body, a few verses come to my mind. The first one is Ephesians 5:18 which says “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” In a literal sense you could take this verse to mean ‘Don’t Get Drunk’ but I see the illustration of wine as anything that we use and/or overuse and it occupies most of our time. And by no means am I going to say that I do this day in and day out, I am not perfect but I strive to make this a reality. Anyone who knows me I put a lot of worth in my iPod touch (and especially my Words With Friends App [Challenge me at bnice21 if you want to get beat...err I mean want to play]). We tend to spend most of our down time around areas of our life that we are most passionate about (i.e. video games, building relationships, listening to music).
The Bible says that “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” -Matthew 12:34b, emphasizing that what goes into our bodies will eventually come out, (without getting into the whole digestive discussion, this should be a common sense concept) which means we must be conscious of what we fill our bodies with. What comes out of our body is a direct consequence of something that has been placed in our bodies.
I eventually paid the price for my poor eating habits in high school as I came into Clemson, skinny but with some excess body fat that I’m still shedding off. I feel like the change in nutrition has made a minimal improvement in my performance but you can see a clear difference between me now and what I looked like first coming into Clemson. Sow good habits, and generally you’ll reap good consequences. That’s not to say that everything is going to be good but we will harvest everything we sow because we overflow from our hearts and our actions.
James 3 says that 9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
So I guess the question is: Is your life and your overflow characterized by fresh water or salt water? (because the two can’t co-exist as it says in verses 11 and 12)
