Does God Care If I Eat Chocolate?

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Ahhh, the beginning of Summertime… I realize that most of the country has already experienced temperatures above 70, but here in Maine, we are just now getting a taste of warmer days and colorful blooms in the garden. Today, I am simply determined to take my desk outside, which means wearing a sweatshirt and draping a beach towel across my legs while I sit in the shade. But as a Mainer, or should I say, “Maine-nah,” I am incredibly grateful for today’s abundant sunshine even if it’s only a balmy 68 with a cool breeze.

In a few short weeks, however, I will not be able to hide under my favorite baggy sweatshirt or the bright beach towel, and so begins my annual spring slim-down-torture ritual –– okay, I have really procrastinated this year, so make that my early summer torture ritual. This is the first year I’ve had a blog, so now you get to hear about it … and hopefully hold me accountable. After all, I need to feel the potential of public scrutiny if I were to fail and end up digging through my pantry like Jack Sparrow with his latest treasure map.
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From those Trader Joe’s chocolate bars (dark chocolate with pecans and raisins!) to the Humpty Dumpty dill pickle potato chips (it’s a Maine thing), there are all kinds of junk food treasures waiting to be discovered in my moments of greatest weakness. But through the years of pursuing Jesus, I have come to realize my weakness for food (and believe me, it’s a big one) is not just a matter of willpower, or hormone levels, social indulgence, a misplaced avenue for comfort, or any of the other hundreds of reasons that all the diet gurus holler about. Of course, all of those factors are certainly real contributors to my cravings, but in the end — at least for me — I’ve learned that they are a smokescreen hiding the real truth. Like any set of distractions, they have to each be identified, understood and dealt with in order to see and conquer the real culprit: selfishness.

Now, before anyone sends me hate mail, I am absolutely not minimizing the real biological issues that can cause people to overeat. And this post is not about weight — not at all. I am a firm believer that someone can be healthy, spiritually and physically, and not necessarily be at the “ideal” weight listed on the CDC’s recommended guidelines. It’s also not about legalism or about following a set of rules and punishing yourself for breaking them. And finally, this post is not about banishing naughty foods (or any foods for that matter) from our diets. This message is strictly about our heart before God and what He asks of us. It applies to all things in life that tempt us, but I just happen to have a weakness in this area.

So now that my disclaimer is out of the way, the bottom line (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun) is that if you are a follower of Christ, then you are His dwelling place (I Corinthians 3:16-17). His temple. His abode. He has plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11 & Ephesians 2:10), even if you can’t see them or have any clue what they are right now. He has things for you to do here on this earth until one day He calls you to your eternal home. Everything you do in life requires your body. Even the least physically demanding of spiritual endeavors, like studying and meditating on Scriptures, requires your body’s participation in some manner. So God makes it clear that we are to keep our temples in the best shape that we can for His use and His glory. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice to set us free, which means we are not to be enslaved to anything — and that includes food (Galatians 5:13). Ironically, the most visible and identifiable thing about us — our bodies — is not designed for us. It is designed and equipped for God and His purposes.

As you might have guessed by now, the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is both yes and no. Does God care if we eat a piece of chocolate or indulge with an In-N-Out burger (another delicious favorite)? No, I believe He doesn’t care, as long as those “gifts” are not fruits born out of our selfishness. But I think He cares immensely when we let any kind of pleasure dominate our heart’s desires long enough and often enough to jeopardize our ability to fulfill our callings or numb our ability to find our greatest delight in Him. So while the specific type of pleasure might not matter (as long as it is not an inherently sinful one), our dependence on — and the pursuit of — them matters during every second of our lives. This is because the very presence of God, the Holy Spirit, may ask you to use your temple to serve Him at any moment. He is with you and capable of being glorified in everything (I Corinthians 10:31) that crosses your lips, slips through your fingertips, captures your attention, and motivates you to move. We are called to view every detail of life as an opportunity to worship God. Romans 12:1 tells us that whatever we do, we should present ourselves as living sacrifices. I love The Message version of that passage, which says, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.” We are to embrace and receive every good gift, but not overuse or glorify the gifts available to us. As Paul says, not every good gift is beneficial at all times.
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My early summer diet is a course correction. A spiritual journey to remind me that while all of God’s gifts are meant to be enjoyed, I have enjoyed a few of them a little too much through the long winter months. While I feel the diet the most in my growling stomach, it is really all about the heart. It’s a way to reset my compass to His heading and not my own direction, which left unchecked would eventually leave me physically, spiritually or emotionally unfit to serve Him in the full capacity He created me for. Sometimes God purposefully gives us physical limitations to better serve and glorify Him, as He did with so many of our Biblical heroes. But as the ultimate Sovereign over my life, that decision is exclusively His prerogative and not mine. To allow selfishness to erode and sabotage my body, which is His temple, is no different from rejecting His best for my life… a usurping of His authority. It is essentially creating limitations He didn’t intend. Resisting chocolate (when needed) is always going to be hard for me. I don’t ever expect that to change. But knowing that the simple act of doing so is spiritual training to keep me in “fighting shape” for the King of kings, is one of the sweetest motivators I can ever imagine.
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