Health on a Hamster Wheel

I started bicycling yesterday. Bicycling is like being on a hamster wheel, but with changing scenery. Or, You can join a gym and ride their stationary bicycles, but then the difference between that and a hamster wheel would be…?  Oh yes,of course, the smell of cedar chips is clearly missing at the gym.

Yesterday it seemed like such a great idea.  Today my body is angry, screaming “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” every time I try to extricate myself from my recliner.

So why do I, like so many others, do this to myself?  It’s about health, plain and simple. I am waging the classic war of the middle-aged, the “battle of the bulge”. We received notice that our health insurance premiums were taking a dramatic increase (what a shock – don’t even get me started), so I am fighting back.  The way I see it, theoretically, I win on two fronts.  I’ll feel better, at least in theory.  And I’ll need less health care, at least in theory, also.

God and Health Care

A deeper purpose in this is a growing conviction of my God-given responsibility to live a healthy life.  Over the years I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched people pray for their health or ask me to pray for their health, or go to a special service or crusade to get someone bigger and better to pray for their health.  These things are okay and can even be good, so long as the person is also taking responsibility for themselves.

I have a hard time praying for God to heal someone of back problems when they’re over-eating, overweight and refusing to exercise.  The Bible does say that we “reap what we sow”.  If I continually eat myself into oblivion and cling to my recliner in a death grip refusing to get up and get healthy, then I probably deserve the results I get.  We really do reap what we sow.  That’s not cruel, it’s a principle God set in motion.

“Kill-a-man”?

On my inaugural bike ride I thought of one of my favorite Tim Allen lines from Home Improvement.  Tim was at his fence talking with his neighbor, Wilson.  Wilson asked if Tim would ever consider climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with him. Tim’s reply, “No, no, no. I avoid any exercise that starts with the words ‘Kill a man’”.

It probably won’t kill us, and they say that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  I want to encourage you to consider even your health habits as an act of serving God. So let’s get on those hamster wheels and “get up off of that thing”, and honor God in the process!

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” –Galatians 6:7-8

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