Episodes

Monday Aug 07, 2017
Power of Paradox:: The Spirit or The Flesh
Monday Aug 07, 2017
Monday Aug 07, 2017
Of all the similarities I have with my Dutch grandfather the sweet tooth is the one that has haunted me the most.
It's incredibly rare to ever feel like ice cream isn't an option. It doesn't matter how much of any meal I've had, ice cream always seems to be the best way to wind it down.
During the really dark days in our house when we don't have any ice cream on hand I start scavenging and making the poorest of choices. Currently I could not tell you the location of the chocolate bars my wife purchased for making s'mores. They have been hidden from me.
I've previously been banned from getting into the chocolate chips that we use for baking.
My children have a small stockpile of granola bars and fruit snacks at all times. My wife can't figure out how they eat through so many of these items in a week. I could tell you, but it would make me very sad.
If it has sugar in it I will probably start thinking it's a good idea to eat all of it around 8:00pm.
I've tried so many times to mentally reason through making better choices that don't involve eating all my children's fruit snacks.
It isn't healthy to eat 12 packages of fruit snacks.
My children will cry when they see that they don't have any fruit snacks.
There's no good answers when someone discovers this pile of wrappers.
This won't actually make me feel full.
I will be actively sick in t-minus 45 minutes.
There seems to be a very active divide between my brain and my body. There's this drive to eat even when my brain is screaming to stop.
And there is language in the Bible that seems to support this reality when they talk about the Spirit and the flesh. In Galatians 5 it says;
"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. "
But what is the flesh and what is the spirit? Is the flesh the sugar monster within me and the Spirit the eye of God watching me gorge myself disappointedly? Is it possible that a surface reading allows us to pull apart two things that are actually inextricably linked? What is the flesh all about and what is the Spirit all about? Is there a war raging inside of each and every one of us?
Welp, I think you should show up this Sunday to hear more of the conversation. There are deep waters here and it may help us to think of ourselves as needing alignment of two complementary parts of ourselves, and less a civil war to be won by one side or the other.
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