obedience and suffering

America is the land of pleasure. We seek comfort. America has always set a high standard for luxury and high living.

In the last two decades, we have spent a little too much time indulging ourselves in the things that give us pleasure and comfort. Two thirds of America is overweight and half of those are obese. It is not all our fault. Pretty much anything we eat or drink from a can, box or bag is making us fat. As a country, we are addicted to sugar.

How do we live in America and not be a Fat American? It ain't easy. It requires obedience and suffering. Obedience and suffering sucks! Yea, well diabetes sucks too.

Obedience:

• When the alarm goes off, we get out of bed and get dressed
• The next morning when the alarm goes off, we get out of bed and get dressed
• We choose to satisfy a sweet tooth with fruit rather than ice cream, cake, pie or chocolate

Suffering:

• The final twenty minutes of the workout is designed to take us slightly out of the comfort zone
• Those of us who are not suffering in the workout, congratulations! You are in a workout! You are still doing more than 6 million people still sleeping in the Atlanta Metro area.
• When the cookies come out for everyone else to enjoy and we choose an apple, suffering. This type of suffering is pretty small in the history of suffering. Two Thousand years ago, the Carpenter had it worse. It has been said, For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Did The Carpenter want to give up and quit? So they say. On Gethsemane, they say he asked if he could get off the hook. He also said "Thy will be done." Does that work for us? Yep. Late in a race or workout, our brain will tell us to quit. We have experience that suggest that saying "Thy will be done" during suffering produces enough physical power to prevent us from quitting. Sound hoaky, far fetched and a little weird? Try it.