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Dig. Chapter 7. The Idol of Food

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 7. The Idol of Food

“The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity.  Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol?  Is the idol yourself?  Your work?  Your conception of what a worker should be?  Your experience of salvation and sanctification?  Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness.  If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is God whom you need.  Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols, away from everything that has been starving your imagination.  Rouse yourself, take the gibe that Isaiah gave the people (Isaiah 40:26) and deliberately turn your imagination to God.”  Oswald Chambers

Someone said in order to understand what we truly worship, we have to get to a place where there’s no stimuli, nothing to do, no one with whom to talk, no task to complete.  We have to get there, and then be still enough to observe where our minds go.  There, in that space, whatever our minds rest upon, that’s what we worship. 

We have spent several chapters digging around to better understand how our current cultural idols impact not only our daily lifestyle choices, but our spiritual lives as well.  The exploration of these idols has been highly convicting for me, and I hope there have been moments of learning for you as well.  As we move away from exploring idols by name and expression, I genuinely hope you’ve been able to glean something useful for your body, mind, spirit, or soul.  I hope you may be able to see more clearly what it is you worship. 

At the beginning of all this, I asserted that I would do my best to make these ideas practical.  We want to be people who can identify areas in our lives that need improvement, and then actually start improving upon them.  The book of James is one of the most practical books in the Bible, addressing character improvement opportunities while offering practical guidance for how to apply the principles.  He writes,

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” James 2:14 – 16

James encourages us not to just be hearers of the word, but doers, also.  He asks us not to simply wish to have wisdom, but to ask for it, to pursue it, to do something, every day to gain it.  James urges us to persevere under trial, to be quick to listen and slow to speak, to give up our place for others, to actively care for widows and orphans.  James is a book about acknowledging where we are, and then choosing, deliberately, to do something about it. 

Fam, that’s where we have arrived as well. 

So, let’s talk about food. 

FOOD

We worship food.  That might feel hyperbolic – but think about it. 

We celebrate birthdays with food.  “Congratulations for another year of life, what do you want to eat?” 

We get promotions and how do we celebrate?  With a fancy dinner out, of course!  And it’s lovely! 

Someone dies, graduates, or gives birth and how do we come around the family?  We lovingly, tenderly, carefully, make them delicious bites of food! 

We watch sports with food, we celebrate anniversaries with food, we gather around our friends and family with food.  From Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas, the Superbowl, to Valentine’s Day, to Memorial Day, to the Fourth of July, and Labor Day – every special occasion, holiday, or way to celebrate, grieve, or commemorate a life event is done with food. 

We are, perhaps, the most food-centric culture on the planet, and we’re just getting started. 

Food is also how many of us address our emotional needs.  It is how we mend broken hearts, how we grieve, how we comfort.  We have come to believe that food can, in fact, help us process and unpack complex emotions. 

We use food to greet a loved one home from a long time away. 

We use food as a way to date and get to know one another. 

We use food to lure people to business meetings. 

We use food to get people to come to church.   

So much about our relationships with food is beautiful and lovely and delights our senses and experiences, and that should be celebrated!  But at some point, we stopped using food for fuel and we started using it for just about everything else. 

To put it concisely, we stopped eating food; food started eating us. 

ADORATION AND NEGLECT

Our inordinate love of food is fascinating in that it tends to express itself in a very paradoxical way.  We either adore it or neglect it. 

When we’re neglecting food, we are ignoring the critical role it plays inside our bodies.  We simply eat what we want, when we want, regardless of the consequences.  When we’re adoring food, we’re obsessing over what we’ll eat, when we’ll eat, and where we’ll eat.  Food, and decisions around food, are predominant in the structure of a day.   

Sage Journals published an academic article entitled Mindless Eating: The 200 Daily Food Decisions We Overlook.  In the article, authors Wansink and Sobal explain that as individuals we make over 200 food decisions a day and are aware of very few of them.  This would indicate that food is of paramount concern to us, and so much so in fact, that we have little awareness of the influence, power, and energy we give it. 

After over fifteen years in the health and wellness space, I have observed that we tend to fall into a few categories when it comes to our relationships with food: 

The Enthusiast: We are really excited about eating well.  We know what macronutrient spread we will seek to achieve every day.  We know what we like.  We know what food makes us well.  We use food as fuel to help us perform at the highest levels and it’s possible that food has even become an object of how we achieve value, status, or identity. 

The Explorer: We genuinely want to eat well, be well, and thrive, but we have no idea how to do it when it comes to food.  We’ve tried every diet, every fix, every trend, but we just can’t seem to find a relationship with food in which we thrive.  We fight with food more than we eat it, and in doing so, think about food often, always, and insufferably. 

The Empath: Food is the way we cope.  It is the solution to our many emotions.  When we can feel everything, food can fix everything.  Food makes life easier, more peaceful, more comfortable.  It is a source of happiness and contentment when the rest of life feels unbearable.  The content, makeup, and nutritional value of food has one purpose alone: to help us process all the varied complications of life. 

The Evader: We know food affects us.  We know it’s doing something in our bodies because the doctor’s telling us so, but we don’t do anything about it.  It’s not fun to think about and we want to be able to eat what we want, so we don’t give it a lot of stage time.  One day something may have to change, but for now, we just want to eat what we want, when we want, how we want.  The consequences can wait for another day. 

Regardless of where we find ourselves within these categories, one can observe the elevated attention and energy we offer to food every day.  What’s so remarkable about this is that we no longer live in a time where we have to fight to find food.  Though much of the globe is dying of starvation, in our culture food is readily available at all times.  It seems a twisted reality that while half of the world dies of starvation, the other half dies of obesity.  This is the power food has over us. 

But I have to believe there is the very real possibility for us all to have healthy relationships with food.  I know we can become experts when it comes to food if we work at finding what works for us, and then apply it.  We can find the middle ground in which we make mindful choices regularly, without letting food consume our thoughts, energies, and outputs as they do now. 

The Expert: We understand which foods will make us well and keep us well.  We plan ahead, but we don’t obsess.  If we’re not in a place for food to be ideal, it’s ok, yet if we have the opportunity for ideal, we seek to achieve it.  We know what to do and have made a habit of doing it, so we don’t think about food nearly as much as we used to, and we don’t change our food plan based on how the day went, what news we received, or how well we performed at our jobs.  We choose to fuel our bodies well regularly, because we know that’s how we thrive, and it’s our choice to steward our bodies well. 

So what can we actually do about to become experts? 

There are, I believe, some very practical ways to start improving our relationships with food.  It will look a little different for every person and every household, but I believe that the energy invested in this will reap a great harvest.  (

PLAN

The number one way we can take back the power food has over us is to plan well. 

Pick the same day of the week, every week, to sit down with the decision-makers of the family and plan what the household’s meals will be for the entire week.  If you can cook at home, do that.  If that’s not an option, plan what and where you’re going to eat.  Make as many decisions as you can in one sitting while you have full stomachs.  If you try to create this plan, or shop for this plan, while you’re hungry, healthful decisions will fly out the window.  Believe me.  It’s how I ended up ice cream, eating macaroni and cheese, and pizza for a week. 

Then, it’s time to execute.  A plan is just a plan until you do something about it, so make it a priority to actually do it.  Write it all down, and then move your body to the grocery store.  By doing this every week, you can have food decisions made, groceries purchased, and the plan laid out for the entirety of the week.  By simply having the plan and executing it, we’re taking power away from food.  It will not fill our brains, zap our energies, or tempt us with unhealthful choices nearly as much as it does when those decisions are not predetermined. 

But, in order for this to work, we actually have to do it.  And actually doing the planning and executing of the plan, may be the only two things you can control.  So control them!  Even if the plan isn’t executed perfectly, doing the planning and the shopping and the prepping is already teaching us the habits of a healthful relationship with food.  And bonus!  We’ve just eliminated the 5:01 PM ‘What do you want for dinner?’ conversation! Insert happy dance here. 

Planning is simple, it doesn’t cost anything, and it won’t take much time.  It is, by far, the most important step in beginning to right our relationship with food. 

OCCASION

We’ve spent some time in this chapter discussing how food is incorporated into our daily culture.  We use food to occasion much more often than we use it for fuel.  And though job promotions, homecomings, birthdays, funerals, games, and gatherings are all natural places for food, it may be prudent, for a season, to choose alternative ways to commemorate occasions while we reorder food’s place in our lives. 

There are many ways to express a sentiment, show support for someone, get to know one another, celebrate, and mourn.  Food doesn’t have to be central to all of these occasions, but in our culture, it usually is.  For instance, we could make these occasions movement-centric instead of food-centric.  

There are many ways to celebrate a birthday or go on a date or gather as a community that don’t have to be centered around food.  Instead of dinner or cake or a coffee date or doughnuts, we could go roller skating or bowling or rock climbing or surfing or hiking or paint or go to a concert.  If someone loses a loved one, we could offer babysitting or help with the ceremony or donate to a charity or start a 5K to honor the departed.  When gathering with a community we could do a service project together, plant a community garden, walk around a neighborhood and pray for it. 

The possibilities to occasion outside a food-centric atmosphere are limitless.  And though having food be a part of an occasion is not at all a bad thing, we may consider shifting the focus of our occasions while we work to better understand our relationship with food.  These small adjustments will affect how we relate to food, and it may be suprising how little we notice that food is not the central feature at our occasions anymore.  I wonder if we’ll even miss it.    

WORSHIP

It may sound like a stretch, but I think we have a beautiful opportunity to worship God through our relationship with food. 

First, consider the space that opens up in the mind when the household’s meals are planned for the week.  Every decision already made and prepared for is going to free up energy, time, and if you’re cooking at home, money!  We just took the 200 food decisions we make every day and eliminated them entirely.  What relief!  What freedom!  What margin!  And all because we planned our food.  Creating this space and eliminating the ancillary distractions from the day is what allows the margin for rest, quietude, and stillness.  This is the great space we need to go out to the hills and commune with our Lord. 

In addition to the practicality of creating space, time, and energy to worship, reordering our love of food also allows for worship through practical stewardship.  No different than the act of tithing, we are called to steward the gifts God gave us, and caring for our bodies through what we eat is an essential part of stewarding them.  I believe that through planning and preparing your food you may find yourself standing at your counter prepping your food and feeling affirmed that what you’re choosing for you and your family is a God-honoring choice.  And this can become worship.  Not worship of the food.  Not worship of your own dutiful behaviors.  But simple, meek, gentle, lowly worship from children of God who are doing practical things to honor Him with what we’ve been given. 

So often in our walks we try to improve qualitative character things that are difficult to measure.  Am I being more patient? Am I any more loving?  Am I growing in my relationship with the Lord?  Am I parenting in the way I should?  These are admirable aspirations that are terribly hard to measure. 

But food is one of the rare spaces that can be measured.  How many meals did you plan and execute this week?  How many healthful choices did you make?  How many times did you choose something that allowed you to enter into stewardship or worship because you knew you were honoring God by your choices? 

When we are able to relate to food in healthful ways, we’re not just making a good choice for our bodies.  We’re also making more fiscally sound choices, we’re managing stress, we’re creating margin, we’re making stewardship practical, and we’re more mindfully engaging in worship.  If we can start to make these small adjustments, we may begin to reorder food to its rightful place – a place of enjoyment; a place of gratitude; a place of communion; and a place of simple fuel. 

It doesn’t have to happen all at once.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  And it doesn’t have to look the same for everyone.  But it won’t happen if we don’t do it. 

And that is up to you.  So pick a place to start.  It’s time to get dirty. 

The post Dig. Chapter 7. The Idol of Food first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 6. The Idol of Appearance(s)

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 6. The Idol of Appearance(s) 

“No man knows himself or can describe himself with fidelity.  But he can reveal himself.  This [was] especially true of Gandhi.  He believed in revealing himself.  He regarded secrecy as the enemy of freedom – not only the freedom of India, but the freedom of man.”  Louis Fischer on the life and legacy of Gandhi, Princeton, 1961

A number of years ago I visited a friend from college during the holiday season.  We sat around a small, circular kitchen table sipping hot beverages and perusing our mutual friends’ Christmas cards.  They decorated the table in colorful quadrilaterals and depicted happy scenes of sparkling smiles and pretty bows placed just-so over fireplaces, atop the heads of beautiful children, or tied neatly around the necks of well-behaved dogs. 

It’s a nice tradition we have, isn’t it, to send our family’s most genteel greetings during the holidays? 

It’s nice, but it’s not super honest. 

I don’t think I would have noticed the simulated comeliness of it all if for but one, very different card. 

This card featured a disaster of a kitchen.  Pots, plates, bowls, cups, and food naturally used and out of place were strewn across the kitchen counters and sink.  Two parents were pictured, slightly disheveled and looking exhausted while a crying baby sat balanced atop mom’s slanted hip.  A couple of well-played kids looked displeased at having been asked to pose for a picture that interrupted their adventures and their grumpy faces and tossed hairdos topped off the family’s warmest wishes to their recipients.

It was refreshing. 

All these years later I still remember it because it was just so blatantly truthful. 

This is a small example of the way we pose for each other, but the juxtaposition of this very candid card among its postured pals serves as a model for the introduction of what our culture so readily serves – the Idol of Appearance(s). 

Our instincts are not honest representations of what’s going on in our lives. 

Our instincts are: “I’m well, how are you?”  #blessed #grateful #bestdayever

My personal go-to when all is not well is this quick and cold two-word text message: “All good.” 

That’s when my close friends know to pursue, because when I say I’m ‘all good’, I am, in fact, not ‘all good’. 

Ridiculous, isn’t it? 

With her permission, I asked a friend if I may share her reaction to finding out she would need chemo to treat her cancer diagnosis.  It wasn’t the cancer that made her emotional.  It wasn’t the chemo either.  When we really got down to it, it was the idea that others would perceive her as weak or sick that made her cry. 

This is the real us. 

We don’t want to be perceived certain ways, so we posture.  We pose.  We present ourselves as we wish to be seen.  And it is anything but authentic. 

I think that’s why we’re so drawn to raw vulnerability in people, in media, or in storytelling. 

Real life is hard.  Real life is not always pretty.  Real life is stomach bugs, financial hardship, and root canals.  Real life is getting a lot of ‘no’s’.  Real life is the messy kitchen and the grumpy kids. 

But we don’t present real. 

We put together highlight reels of our best moments and post them for others to admire.  We dress everyone up and make them stand in front of a pretty backdrop.  We don’t post our trips to the post office or the Cologuard that came to the front door, but we are sure to share three pictures per day from the tropical vacations we take. 

The old adage, “Fake it ‘til you make it” is a further example of our cultural worship of appearances.  Our posturing is encouraged all the way into our job performances. 

Insecure about what you’re doing?  Need some guidance on how to move forward?  Don’t ask for help or be straightforward about your doubts or questions.  Just fake it like you know what you’re doing until those doubts and questions go away.

But that doesn’t teach us anything but deceit. 

The Idol of Appearance(s) tells us we must deceive others to make sure they think we’re okay. 

Instead of sharing our martial challenges, we say things like, “He’s such a great dad.” Or “She’s my best friend.”  When what’s true is that there’s an alcohol addiction, or financial trouble, or interpersonal challenges that are stealing the joy, love, and respect from the marriage. 

I can’t think of a way this kind of posturing helps us. 

Nothing, and no one, gets better when aren’t honest about what’s really going on. 

Like Ficsher said: secrecy, the enemy of freedom. 

Is it that we don’t trust each other?  Is it that we have come to care too much about what others think?  Is it that we have forgotten that only One can judge us in a way that matters?  Is it that we’ve placed our value in the opinion of the crowd instead of the opinion of the One? 

I’m not sure what causes us to worship appearances the way we do, but the importance we’ve come to place on others’ perceptions has blinded our village.  We have begun to care so much about what others think that we’ve lost sight of the fact that we have only One to please. 

TECHNOLOGY

Our worship of appearances finds a strong home in the world of technology – one in which it thrives and has every opportunity to lie to us about the faux importance of image, presentation, and physical appearances. 

Is it a problem to look pretty and have gorgeous things?  Is it somehow wrong to present a lovely picture of our families during the holidays?  Of course not!  It’s when these things become ultimate that problems arise, and I simply posit that technology has made it very easy for these things to become ultimate. 

We see the worship of appearances take center stage when it comes to socials, television, contemporary media, and marketing.  Though we’ve come a long way in accepting different definitions of beauty, we still worship what looks good to us and we still spend obscene amounts of time, money, and energy to attain whatever standard of beauty we accept. 

This worship expresses itself in technology through our ‘shoot it until it’s perfect’ posts on socials, and egregious time deposits in consuming television and media.  And it tells us we must post often; that the content must be attractive; and that we must come across as appealing. 

As consumers, we see stories from vacations, work retreats, celebrations of births, birthdays, graduations, and promotions.  What we do not see are things that are much more common – mundane, even.  Things that are daily and unrelenting.  Things that are a much more accurate representation of what our lives are really like. 

We don’t see pictures from the grocery store, or staff meetings, or standing in line at the DMV.  We don’t see posts about familial fights or days rife with anxiety, doubt, or depression. 

What we present, and thereby what we consume, is a not-so-factual roll of what our most appealing circumstances.  It’s majority fiction.  And it has become a focus of our collective worship, positioning the Idol of Appearance(s) front and center on a daily basis. 

And our worship doesn’t stop there.  The appearance god is not limited to socials. 

We also fall at the feet of appearances by what we consume through media. 

We worship people who look good and position them in places of authority, fame, or influence simply because we find them attractive.  Today is a day in which we find the most influential voices informing us and our children are those in positions of influence simply because they’re physically appealing. 

How do we begin to give voice to character over physical appeal?  Well that’s really up to us, isn’t it? 

One person at a time, one voice at a time, we have the ability and opportunity to lift up and honor those who display the content of character we hope for future generations to exemplify.  We can follow them.  We can share their words.  We can use people of character as examples for our kids instead of buying them the latest copies of Seventeen to use as a guide. 

I believe there’s much we can do to dethrone the appearance god and it simply may be a matter of what we actively choose to value. 

FOOD/MOVEMENT

I combine food and movement in this chapter because the way we worship appearances through food and movement is very much the same, and it starts and ends with inordinate loves. 

We touched on inordinate loves in the Idol of Validation, and we’ll discuss it again in a chapter to come.  Inordinate loves, or counterfeit gods, in Tim Keller’s words, are the things we worship instead of Christ.  Any of the idols we’ve explored so far could be considered inordinate loves in different ways. 

The Idol of Appearance(s) comes in when we make our food choices or our movement choices ultimate, defining, or identifying.  In other words, when we start to define ourselves as someone who does CrossFit or completes Ironman races; or we regularly prioritize workouts over everything else in our lives; or we measure out every macronutrient for every meal and post it socials.  This is when we have started to worship our food and movement choices through the Idol of Appearances.  They have become so important that they are ultimate in our lives.  They are the choices in which we find our identities.  They are how we introduce ourselves to new people, how we present ourselves to our social fan clubs, and they determine how we prioritize our time, money, and energy every day.  When these accomplishments define us, we know they have become little gods through which we are finding meaning. 

But what happens when something changes, and we can no longer complete those races?  What happens when we have an injury and have to sit out of the CrossFit workouts?  What happens when we can’t consume the exact right nutrition for a week or two?  As Tim Keller states, if it can be taken away, it’s not something in which to place our identities.  And all of these things can be taken away – our abilities to move, perform, compete, or consume the right nutrition.  All of these things can disappear in the blink of an eye. 

And please, don’t get me wrong – making healthful food and movement choices is tremendous!  CrossFit does community excellently!  Races are a great way to stay motivated and work toward healthful lifestyles.  Choosing to move our bodies often and eat well are beautiful ways we can honor the gift God gave us in our bodies.  The opportunity we have is to make sure we are making these choices for stewardship of our bodies – not as a means to glorify ourselves or to find a place for our identities. 

REST

We talked about rest, peace, and quietude when we explored the Idol of Busy, but I think the discussion on rest is also very relevant to the Idol of Appearance(s).  Here I’m not so much referring to physical rest, but more so rest of the soul. 

All this keeping up, positioning, and pretense is exhausting. 

I’m not sure we know why we do it or what it is our presentations are supposed to achieve, but I know it’s a lot of work.  There is no freedom in secrecy.  Freedom is easy.  Freedom is an easy yoke.  And we know whose yoke is easy.

 Jesus said,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30, NIV

I must believe there is much for us to learn in being gentle and humble at heart.  I wonder how growing in these ways will lighten our load.  I wonder how becoming gentler and humbler at heart may release our needs to present ourselves the way we think others should be receiving us.  I wonder how these characteristics would change our social posts, enable us to honestly answer the question “how are you?”, and help us more readily model vulnerability.  There is great soul rest offered to us in knowing whose we are.  Perhaps a deep knowledge and heart acceptance of that truth could release us from our worship of appearances. 

Maybe it could set us entirely free of our secrecies. 

COMMUNITY

Our worship of the Idol of Appearance(s) has various levels of implications.  Like many of our idols, though we worship appearances as individuals, the effects of this worship become collective, and the implications of our worship are collective as well. 

As I mentioned earlier, the premise of presenting ourselves in the way we hope to be perceived is deceit.  In many cases we must blur the truth in order to present what we desire others to observe about us.  The challenges that arise from such behaviors are many, but what is perhaps most devastating is the imprisonment and division that happens when we silo ourselves off behind our walls of pretense.  We build fortresses around our souls and stop authentically sharing our lives and as a result, we become isolated in our own realities that are then only real to us. 

This paves the road for individualism. 

In our culture we have come to pursue excellence and thriving for good ole Number 1.  The Idol of Self(ie) exposed our unending worship of ourselves, our needs, and our desires, wants, and wishes.  The Idol of Appearance(s) would say that we must present ourselves as achieving all of those things – whether or not it’s true. 

This steals from the way we thrive – community. 

We need each other.  Desperately.  And we can’t live in community if we can’t be honest.  We can’t share a resource we don’t know someone needs.  And we can’t believe we’re going to receive something if we don’t ask. 

The adoration of appearances silos us from the rest of the world.  It creates isolation that fosters anxiety, depression, and insecurity.  The results make critical the need to be authentic.  We cannot thrive without each other; therefore we cannot thrive without the willingness to be vulnerable, honest, and upfront about our true states. 

And we can all participate in this.  This is not some kind of far-off magic or even something so hard as breaking an alcohol, drug, or sugar addiction.  We’re not talking about forcing ourselves into the gym every day or removing whole food groups from our diets. 

This is as simple as telling the truth.  Listening when someone speaks.  Inviting people over for meals.   Welcoming others’ weaknesses along with our own. 

We can be trustworthy people by keeping our words, keeping confidences, and keeping coffee dates.  And we can be the first people who model vulnerability when it’s hard. 

I don’t believe tearing down the Idol of Appearance(s) is the hardest slaying we’ll do, but it will take intentionality, and we can only do it together.  Those of you journeying with me through this project in real-time have been essential to revealing the places where I struggle with each of these idols, and I can’t begin to articulate my gratitude for you.  Maybe part of the reason Jesus sent out the disciples in pairs is because He knew how much we need each other in order to truly know ourselves. 

So here’s to knowing. 

Knowing you, and knowing me, and knowing all the not-so-cute parts in between. 

The post Dig. Chapter 6. The Idol of Appearance(s) first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 5. The Idol of Busy

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 5. The Idol of Busy

“Every age has its own characteristics.  Right now we are in an age of religious complexity.  The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us.  In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.  The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.”  AW Tozer

Silence.

Rest. 

Stillness. 

These aren’t things of our time, are they?  And yet, they are just where we are pointed:

“Be still and know that I am God.”  Psalm 46:10

“He leads me beside quiet waters.” Psalm 23:2

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still .”  Exodus 14:14

“But the Lord is in His temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.”  Habakkuk 2:20

“For God alone my soul waits in silence .” Psalm 62:1

“And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while’.”  Mark 6:31

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” Psalm 37:7

These references go on and on.  The commands for us to rest; to be still; to wait; to be silent – they are clear, continual, and surprisingly concise. 

To be transparent, of all the idols we’ve explored so far, this one is the most convicting for me.  The ‘busy’ person, the calendar-filler, the taskmaster, the achiever – I am guilty of all of these things.  And digging into the Idol of Busy and what it means has been painfully expository. 

It is my great hope that through each of these excavations (you’re welcome, @ashely ;)), we are learning ways we can improve on something tomorrow, that we may have missed today.  Guilt and shame are not the ways to improve behavior change, but intentional and truthful time before the throne, can be.  This project has driven me there – before the throne – face in the dirt, empty-handed, and yet, gloriously free. 

It’s a paradox, like much of the Kingdom is. 

So if you’re still with me, grab a shovel, fam.  This one gets a little not pretty. 

In reflecting upon how the Idol of Busy impacts our culture and daily behavior, it’s striking to consider both the macro and micro expressions of our worship. 

Things like filling up our calendars, signing up to participate in as much as possible, and scheduling meetings, events, and gatherings create the impression either for ourselves, or for others, that we are needed, necessary, and that our presence is demanded by others.  It’s a way of manifesting value for ourselves, whether deliberately or via a subconscious need to feel wanted.  This too, as discussed in the Idol of Validation, can be a way through which we find our identity in places other than Christ. 

We respect ‘busy’.  We admire it.  And so it’s something we feel a need to be, whether or not we realize it – or are willing to acknowledge it. 

Though our culture somehow finds being ‘busy’ a noble asset, when reflecting upon our Biblical commands to be still; to wait; to rest; and to be quiet, I can’t help but see the conflict there.  In our day and age rest is pushed aside as a last priority; quiet, at times, is almost literally impossible; and slow is not, and will not, be tolerated. 

How can we expect to worship in the chaos?  How can we expect to commune with the Lord if we cannot be quiet before Him?  How can we rest a while with Him if we never retreat to the desolate place?  We – I – have much to learn when it comes to dethroning the Idol of Busy. 

Thankfully, Tozer gives us some practical guidance on where to begin…  

“We must… proceed in the way of simplicity.  Now as always God discovers Himself to ‘babes’ and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent.  We must simplify our approach to Him.  We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few).  We must put away all efforts to impress and come with the guileless candor of childhood.”  AW Tozer

TECHNOLOGY

Technology has varied implications on our obsessions with ‘busy’, but let’s start with socials. 

In this age of self-promotion we find ourselves capturing each moment that could be perceived as important and we publish them for our adoring fan clubs.  If we travel all the way back to Chapter 1. The Idol of Self(ie), there is a question there that this brings to mind. 

“Why did you post that?” 

Those who were transparent in their answers said things like, “I like the hearts” or “I wanted people to know what I was doing.” 

Well, it’s really that, isn’t it? 

We want people to know what we’re doing.  We want to be perceived as valuable.  We want to be perceived as ‘busy’ – as wanted; popular. 

Do you remember Friday and Saturday nights as a teenager?  There is an unspoken obligation to be doing something interesting on a Friday or Saturday night, isn’t there?  In our culture we have so come to worship the Idol of Busy that if someone says they don’t have plans, it somehow diminishes the worth or value for that person.  And in our culture of social media, now every kid sitting at home on a Friday or Saturday without plans gets a front row seat to what ‘everyone else’ is doing that he/she wasn’t invited to join.  The kids who are out there doing something are glorifying their busyness to validate themselves while the kids at home are beating themselves up because they weren’t included. 

This is a dangerous lie we’re telling, and it’s an even more dangerous lie to believe. 

(I wonder if socials shut down on Friday nights… could we save a teen from suicide?)

Our technology-associated worship of ‘busy’ doesn’t just express itself through socials.  It also affects us through relentless stimuli.  

Though our worship is very macro, it also moves into a cellular worship of ‘busy’, impacting us all the way down through each of our senses.  Though this is not limited to technology, I keep it under this umbrella because technology’s assault on our senses is merciless.  

“The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetimes.  It is clamorous, insistent…  It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final.  But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us.  The world of sense triumphs.  The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible; the temporal, of the eternal.”  AW Tozer

Our cultural worship of busy is so great that it meets us in our senses, taking over every waking moment of our smell, sight, taste, sound, and sense of touch.  There are stimuli everywhere, all the time. 

From the sounds on the street to the noise from the radio, television, phone, or tablet.  From the smells of food, or air fresheners, or cologne, or cleaning aids.  From the sights of light, visions from the television, photos and art on walls, colors, pictures, phones, graphics, logos, etc.  From the taste of gum, food, mints, soda, tea, milk, etc.  From the softness of clothing to the sleek feel of a phone case, to the varied textures of home building materials, clothing, the interior of a car, etc. 

Our senses are overloaded at all times with stimuli from the surrounding world.  And we not only accept it, we seek it.  A moment of lull is filled with social scrolling, videos from Youtube, music, TV, or phones calls or texts.  Tozer suggests that these stimuli are clamorous and insistent assaults on our whole selves, and that they make it very difficult to sense the City of God around us.  If we consider the commands so frequently decorating scripture to rest, be still, be quiet, and wait, it becomes easy to see where the strain is. 

Can I ask some potentially difficult questions? 

Why can we not be at rest? 

Why can we not be silent? 

Why must there be a sound, sight, taste, smell, or feeling to fill the void? 

What are we afraid to experience in the blankness? 

Scripture tells us to be silent and be still in order to experience more of God.  Is that what we fear? 

I wonder how our lives might change – how our culture might – if we made this pursuit of stillness, quietness, and rest a daily activity.  But the way I understand it, we’re going to have to shut out the chaos if we’re going to really do it, and I guess what it comes down to is…  are we really willing to do that?  Shut out the chaos?  Are we willing to meet silence?  

“It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence.  We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God.  He is nearer than our own souls, closer than our most secret thoughts.”  AW Tozer

MOVEMENT

The Idol of Busy has much influence over our movement decisions, the main one of which is very easily nut-shelled in one succinct sentence:  “I don’t have time.” 

We don’t have time to move.  We don’t have time to exercise.  We don’t have time for that yoga session or that exercise class or to walk to the store instead of drive. 

But… don’t we? 

If we go back to the Value Challenge and look again at how we spend our time, we will all find spaces where time can be reprioritized to ensure that we’re getting more movement in a day.  And though we’ve discussed this before, I want to reiterate that ‘movement’ doesn’t have to mean doing something you hate.  The most effective and sustainable movement choices are doing things you actually enjoy.  If you love skating, do that!  If you love swimming, find a water hole!  If you love dancing, join a class.  If you love lifting heavy things and putting them back down again, find heavy things to lift and lower!  The only one who can identify how to help you move well and often, is you.  And we are all more successful when we’re doing something we enjoy, and even more so when we’re doing it with people we enjoy (thank you @cassie, @paige, and @erica). 

Before we move on, I want to add an additional note on the Idol of Busy and our movement.  In my personal reflection of how the Idol of Busy impacts my own movement, I uncovered something that needs critical attention for my own soul, and that is the deliberate pursuit of silence.  Though I thoroughly enjoy moving and find ways to move often, God helped me see that every one of my movement choices is filled with noise.  Whether I choose to call a friend while I walk, listen to a podcast when I run, blast music when I lift, take a dance class with music, take a yoga class with music, hike with a friend, or serve with a friend, none – as in literally zero – of my movement choices include silence. 

I worship the Idol of Busy while I move. 

When I reflect on scripture’s instructions to us to be still, be silent, wait, and be at rest before the Lord, I recognize that I have the opportunity to be silent before Him while I walk, run, swim, or serve.  This may be something to consider when choosing your movement choices as well. 

FOOD

The Idol of Busy impacts our food choices in several ways, but the most obvious is one we discussed at length in our explorations of the Idol of Comfort.  We like to say we don’t have time to cook or plan for the right nutrition choices, but the truth is, this is a very convenient excuse for not doing what’s right for our bodies. 

In reality, if we choose to meal plan, shop for those groceries, and then cook at home, the process actually makes time in our schedules.  The elimination of last-minute decisions, reservations, and mobile orders actually adds time back into the day.  The groceries are there.  The meal is planned.  It may even already be prepped depending on how you prepare for the week. 

The Idol of Busy would lie to us and say the best solution is the drive through lane, but the right choice for the stewardship of our time, money, and bodies is to plan ahead.  We are not too busy to care for our time, money, and bodies.  If it feels like you are, head back to the Value Challenge and look again at how you’re spending your time and money.  Re-evaluate those columns with hypotheticals in the case that you would choose to meal plan, and then see if you can shift it around next week.  Give it a shot, test the theory, and share your findings with us here.  We’re all here to learn how to do this together, and I believe we have much to learn from each other. 

There’s so much to consider when it comes to the Idol of Busy.  Tozer’s Pursuit of God is a good place to start if you’re looking for more on how to silence the chaos and truly experience Him.  But at a minimum, may the cry of Tozer’s heart be ours as well as we seek to tear down the altars in our hearts that are not built for God’s glory.      

“O God and Father, I repent of my preoccupation with visible things.  The world has been too much with me.  Thou hast been here and I knew it not.  I have been blind to the Thy Presence.  Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me.”  AW Tozer

The post Dig. Chapter 5. The Idol of Busy first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 4. The Idol of Validation

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 4. The Idol of ValidatioN“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  – John 10:10It happens when we post pictures of ourselves. 

It happens when we send pictures of ourselves. 

It happens when we dangle a self-effacing comment to our peers and wait for their correction. 

It happens when we #blessed. 

It happens when post our workout stats, our step counts, our calories burned, and our #progresses. 

It happens when we check our post three thousand times to check its ‘like’ status. 

Fam.  I’ve done ’em all.  

We are a people desperate for validation. 

Much of our need for validation that is natural.  We were created with a desire to be seen and acknowledged and loved.  The want to know we matter is an inherent part of existing and cannot be erased from our forms like chalk from a board.  To be missed is not a part of the abundant life God desires for us. 

The challenge does not derive from the need for validation in and of itself.  The challenge derives from the source by which we seek to be validated. 

Our violent thirst for approval will not be met easily, so every day, multiple times a day, we beg, borrow, and bow before the Idol of Validation, searching for the thing that will quench our dry throats. 

Our desperation for validation could stem from many things, and I’m sure the theory herein is not comprehensive.  But it is my hope that through this examination of our persistent need to be acknowledged, we may be able to uncover where this idol has a hold on us. 

TECHNOLOGY

There is really only one place we can start with this conversation, and it’s the place y’all know we have to go.  Social media. 

There may not be a more revealing tool for displaying how desperate we are for other people’s validation.  It is the foundation on which social thrives.  We capture ourselves the way we hope to be perceived (regardless of how far it may be from the truth) and then we post it for other people’s reactions.  Perhaps the reason it is so cemented into our culture is because it creates a way for us to receive validation from others.  It’s a tangible way we can feel seen. 

In their article, Research on Social Media Addiction and Dopamine Driven Feedback, Bilal et el. (2018) help us understand what causes socials to thrive and the impacts it has on our culture.

“Narcissism… points to the problematic situation of mythological character, lover of self, falling in love with [one’s] own image. Narcissism culture is spreading in media and popular culture and consumption culture forced by [social] media.  Culture spreading through mass media shines beauty, currency, and fame, and constructs these values as objects of worship.” 

The functions on our social accounts that count our numbers of ‘views’ and ‘likes’ are proof enough of our need to know we’re being observed. Bilal et el. call this narcissism tendency.  Their research explores how each little ‘heart’ or ‘thumbs up’ produces the dopamine we crave.  They state that our brains experience the same chemical reaction to ‘likes’ as we do when we eat sugar, go on a rollercoaster, take pills or opioids, or engage in sexual activity.  It’s what makes us go back for more. 

Chamath Palihapitiya worked on Facebook from 2007 – 2011.  The Bilal et el. article includes a quote from him that exposes the individual and societal problems the team knowingly created when they created Facebook.  Palihapitiya said:  

“I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of our minds, we kind of knew something bad could happen. We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. It is a point in time where people need a hard break from some of these tools and the things that you rely on. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works.”

I think it should be stated that social media is not the only problem we have.  There are several other players whispering to us about our needs to be validated.  And there are many advantages to social tools too – not just problems.  Marketing, connection to people from around the globe, and flat-world accessibility are great assets to socials that deserve to be celebrated.  But I believe it’s dangerous to pretend as if socials are not ‘feeding the beast’ as Palihapitiya puts it. 

Humans – all humans – have weaknesses in our psyches and social media is a tool that typically brings out the worst in those weaknesses.  The problem with engaging the validation feedback loop from a source like social media is that today’s adoring fan club may be tomorrow’s booing crowd, or worse yet, the ghosts of silence.  

We must consider what we lack that makes us so desperate for others’ approvals, acknowledgements, likes, and applause. 

What is it inside us that requires an audience in order to make us feel as if our lives matter? 

Why is a beautiful moment like a sunrise over the water or a child’s birth no longer beautiful enough unless it is captured and shared? 

What absence in our souls creates this great hunger for validation? 

I wonder how our social habits might change if before we post, we explore our reasons for it. 

Why am I posting this?

Why do I feel the need to share this moment?

Whose approval, applause, or adoration am I seeking?

What am I hoping to receive in response to this post?

Why am I hoping for that?

The Idol of Validation would first convince us that we need to post each moment so we may be affirmed by other people’s approvals of our existences.  Next, the Idol of Validation would have us determine our own intrinsic value based on other people’s responses to our daily post offerings.  And then, perhaps the most damaging of all, the Idol of Validation would tell us that our opinions are able to determine the value of other people based on how we respond to their posts. 

Can I posit a few questions that may be worth both our individual and corporate reflections?

Why do strangers get to determine how much value we hold?

Why do we willingly give them the power to do so?

What response would be enough to satisfy our validation needs through social media?

What would be enough to satisfy our needs for validation in general?

The truth is, that festering under our desperations for validation are the gaping holes of misplaced identities. 

Not mistaken identities.  Not lost identities.  Misplaced ones.  Identities we have misplaced. 

This has been and remains the fatal flaw in placing our identities in temporal things.  Temporal things are temporal.  They change.  They disappear.  They come and they go.  They, not unlike feelings, are fickle. 

Tim Keller does a tremendous job of helping us see where we have misplaced our identities in his book Counterfeit Gods.  He explores the idea that we have mis-ordered our loves to the point that good things like marriage, relationships, children, jobs, hobbies, and successes are so loved by us that they become our idols.  We end up worshiping these things that can be taken away in the blink of eye and when they are, we are devastated, because we’ve placed our identities, our loves, and our hopes and dreams in something, or someone, temporal. 

In our day and age we’ve started to put things like economic status, follower counts, political positions, and advocate passions in these places of worship as well, pairing our identities with groups who think and believe the way we do.  We find meaning and purpose in causes or social movements as a way to identify ourselves because we’re not finding it anywhere else.  But these things too will change, as we’ve seen them change over the course of history, and though finding causes to support is wonderful and necessary, it cannot be the place where we define our identities. 

This mass search for meaning is also visible in the volume of podcasts and books on the care of our souls and spirits.  The need for identity through spiritual awakening is on loud display in our search for identity in self-realization or self-actualization.  This practice has begun to replace spirituality, the family unit, and cultures that seek to grow, learn, and work together.  Instead of healthy communities we seek fantasies of individualistic excellence, founded on the idea that all we need can be derived from within ourselves.  Perhaps this chasm is another driver pushing us to socials for some sign that we’re okay.  

At the end of the day what the Idol of Validation teaches us is that we cannot fill our souls with anything but our identities in Christ, and until we find a way to do that, we will not be satisfied.  Our contentment can only come in our empty hands lifted high – in the stark acceptance that we are not enough, we will never be enough, and no amount of our peers telling us how great we are is going to fix that.  The profundity of Christ is that we are deeply loved while we are deeply broken, and the more we try to fill our souls with the applause of men the more deaf we will be to the cry from the cross.  That cry was for us.  We are already loved and accepted and validated all we need to be.  All we have to do is believe it.  

If you find yourself in a place where it’s hard to hear the cry from the hill in Golgotha, it may be time to silence the crowd for the one voice that actually matters.  

The post Dig. Chapter 4. The Idol of Validation first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 3. The Idol of Comfort

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 3. The Idol of Comfort

“Pain does not exist until you feel it, and you feel it in your mind.”  – Dr. Paul Brand

Reader, meet the Idol of Comfort.  I don’t need to introduce it to you because it knows you well.  It knows me well too. 

Over the last several decades, the Idol of Comfort has permeated all aspects of our day-to-day culture.  It has seeped into our bones, whispering to them about their need for ease – their right to it.  The Idol of Comfort has persistently spoken lies to us about how we must avoid any form of distress and how pain must be met with nothing less than prayers, pills, and holy water.

A short stint in front of the television will host rounds of advertisements for different brands and methods for reducing pain and minimizing discomfort.  From common cold medicine to headache remedies, Icy Hot for sore muscles, and ads for comfy beds, sofas, chairs, and cars, we will not permit any kind of discomfort, in any way, if we can help it. 

Avoiding pain is so much a priority in our culture, The National Library of Medicine estimated US pain management cost the country 309 billion dollars in 2010. 

The value challenge exposes what we worship by helping us clearly see how we spend our most valuable resources – time and money.  If 309 billion dollars are spent each year on the avoidance of pain, we may conclude that in the US, we worship the Idol of Comfort. 

Dr. Paul Brand was a lifelong medical practitioner who specialized in the treatment of pain.  He spent twenty-seven years serving in India, twenty-five in England, and twenty-seven more in the US.  He makes a notable observation about the difference between India and the US when it comes to pain:   

“In that land [India] of poverty and omnipresent suffering I learned that pain can be borne with dignity and calm acceptance…

Later in the United States, a nation whose war for independence was fought in part to guarantee a right to ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs.  Patients lived at a greater comfort level than any I had previously treated, and they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it.” 

It’s not a great look for us, is it? 

Though my thesis is not that we must endure persistent suffering at all times, my hope is that we may take a closer look at our current relationship with pain – or, more specifically, that we may consider our personal and cultural worship of the Idol of Comfort. 

We will explore how the comfort god rules our daily lifestyle choices, but first, let us consider how the choice to worship comfort impacts us in less concrete expressions. 

Conversationally, for instance. 

How often we dance around a needed conversation because of its potential to make us uncomfortable. 

A relationship teetering on the edge of a cliff; there’s a marriage dynamic that needs to be addressed; there’s something we are desperate to say out loud.  But because these things are going to be hard to discuss, we don’t do it. 

Maybe a child needs to be held accountable.  Maybe a spouse is making a hurtful choice.  Maybe a friend is being continually dishonoring.  Maybe grades are slipping, or a new substance use/abuse has appeared; maybe flirtation comes easier; maybe someone has hurt you; or you’ve hurt someone; or maybe little deceits are being exposed. 

Regardless of the circumstances, we have to be willing to have hard conversations, but because we worship comfort, we push them aside altogether. 

The problem is, in the push aside of hard things, we also push aside the opportunities for reconciliation.  We lose the chance to have freedom from our hurts and give and receive forgiveness.  We neglect the choice to coach our kids up through hard life things because we want them to like us.  Because it’s uncomfortable when our kids don’t like us.  We lose the chance to refine our relationships with our partners and we don’t work through the unescapable hard parts of marriage, family, and friendships. 

All this sacrifice because we simply cannot experience discomfort.  Every effort, no matter the cost, to avoid pain. 

Consider how we powder our images to avoid the discomfort of being perceived differently. 

Maybe that’s expressed in an egregious credit card spend so we can go on vacation with everyone else.  It would be more uncomfortable to admit we’re not financially able to keep up, so we go anyway, spending money we don’t have, just to avoid the discomfort of admitting the truth. 

The need to be perceived a certain way may show up in fashion, body image, or the value of a home or car.  The discomfort of being different is too much, so we pay the cost – no matter the sacrifice, no matter the time spend, and no matter the level of authenticity or integrity we keep. 

It’s fascinating to watch this happen in groups of early-mid teenagers.  Next time you’re in a public space like a mall or amusement park watch for groups of teenagers.  Most especially with groups of girls, you’ll notice that they all wear the same thing.  They may not be the same color, but groups will have agreed beforehand to wear the same general outfit – sundresses and tennis shoes; jeans and crop tops; ripped up shorts and baggy tees. 

To be different is to be uncomfortable.  And we have very little capacity for uncomfortable, so we have very little capacity for being different. 

Even in non-conformist groups like goths, the foundational idea is to be different from the culture, however one may easily spot a gothic individual because they all dress the same way.  It’s interesting, isn’t it, that even in our own manifested expressions of individualism, we find safety in groups that will look the same as us, choose the same as us, and behave the same as us. 

To be different is to be uncomfortable.  And we have very little capacity for uncomfortable. 

What comes to mind are Jesus’ words to His disciples:

“I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Somewhere along the line we forgot that we were not promised comfort, ease, or even our nation’s great guarantee of the right to pursue happiness. 

We were promised trouble.  And we were given peace if we choose it.  But we were not promised comfort. 

In his book, The Gift of Pain, Dr. Brand writes of a war hero who saved multiple comrades from a hot zone while both of his legs were broken.  The solider not only risked his life to pull the others to safety, but he did it while he was severely injured.  Later, while recovering in the hospital, that same war hero became the nuisance of the ward because of his fear of the pain from needles.  He kicked and screamed and woke everyone up, dripping in sweat and breaking out of hospital restraints to avoid the poke. 

When Dr. Brand discussed the behavior with the solider-turned-patient, the man said this:

“There’s a lot more going on out there [in the battlefield] – the noise, the flashes, my buddies around me.  But here in the ward, I have only one thing to think about all night in bed:  that needle.  It’s huge, and when the nurse comes down the row with her tray full of syringes, it gets bigger and bigger.  I just can’t take it!”

Dr. Brand eventually concluded of the soldier one very simple concept that is reiterated throughout the book in several examples: pain takes place in the mind.  Nowhere else. 

He writes,

“Pain seems like something done to us, though in reality we have done it to ourselves, manufacturing the sensation.  Whatever we might conceive of as ‘pain’ occurs in the mind… Pain is always a mental or psychological event, a magician’s trick the mind knowingly plays on itself.”

Dr. Brand goes further to explain the neurological pathways that deliver pain sensations to our body, and how much of a gift those pain sensations are.  Having spent decades working with leprosy patients, whose lame pain sensors allow them to walk on broken limbs and withstand infections until they lose their extremities, Dr. Brand values pain more than most.  He finds it a treasure.  A gift like few others. 

I wonder what might change in our culture and in our day-to-day lives if we started to treasure discomfort, instead of hiding from it. 

MOVEMENT

Avoiding perceived discomfort by avoiding movement is one of our favorite ways to hide from pain.  Expressions of this appear not only in our lack of exercise or ‘active minutes’ in a week, but also in our business strategies, commercial products, marketing, and community infrastructures. 

Businesses strategize toward what’s most convenient for the consumer, what will be the easiest to access, purchase, and repeat.  Home delivery services are a prime (LOL, get it?) example of business models and strategies that are specifically designed to provide comfort for the consumer through the elimination of movement.  Is it convenient?  Absolutely.  What it necessary when the pandemic hit?  Of course.  I use this example for the purpose of furthered understanding that our cultural worship of comfort can be found in every crevice of the squishy couch we lay upon.    

Consider how the Idol of Comfort has informed our infrastructure and architectural designs.  Whereas other countries, European countries especially, have designed their spaces for movement (e.g. biking, walking, hiking, etc.), the US has designed its spaces with escalators, elevators, moving walkways, roadways, drive thrus, and curbside/home deliveries.  Every movement choice that can be replaced with an automated system that requires little to no effort from the user is prioritized. 

And the Idol of Comfort isn’t done yet.  As it pertains to movement, the comfort god does a lot more than just steal our steps and save us calories we don’t need.  It is also systematically eradicating our interactions with living, breathing people.  Every online shopping choice, home grocery delivery, virtual meeting, or text from the basement to the person upstairs is shutting down our ability to have healthy social interactions.  (Pause: in some cases, these services are necessary and I’m thankful for them.  I’m talking about otherwise fully capable situations in which we choose the easy option solely for our own comfort.) 

Exercise is a fascinating irony for the comfort god.  We don’t do it because we don’t want to experience discomfort, while it is, in truth, the primary tool for avoiding pain, discomfort, and disease in the long-term. 

Exercise requires time.  We may be sore after.  We’ll have to sweat.  It will be uncomfortable. 

These are all excuses that prioritize our personal comfort over the stewardship of our bodies.  However, the strain, force, and pressure placed on our bones, muscles, and joints during movement make us stronger, more mobile, and in the long-term, freer of pain.  At the same time, exercise aids us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. 

Our bodies are designed to move.  And we flourish when we move, in every way.  Our avoidance of movement because of our perceived need for comfort is perhaps one of the most dangerous lies we believe when it comes to the stewardship of our bodies.  We must learn to embrace discomfort when it comes to movement. 

Somehow the Idol of Comfort started to convince the world that less movement is equal to a better life, an easier one – a more comfortable one – and that is a dangerous lie to believe.  Because if adopted, repeatedly choosing no movement for our perceived comfort will end in health challenges and much higher levels of pain than one would experience through thirty minutes at the gym, or a short hike, or a few hours shopping in a mall, or a morning swim. 

I think back on the solider-turned-patient who was so focused on the needle that he just couldn’t take it.  I imagine that’s what some of us feel about exercise and movement.  On the battlefield, the solider could withstand the pain from two broken legs.  I wonder if by simply giving our minds something else to think on while we move, we may find it more bearable. 

If you’ve tried a movement solution before and have had a hard time sticking with it, it may help to explore other movement solutions.  Invite people to join you, call a friend while you walk, try out a class, or do some form of movement you used to love to do as a kid like skating, or swimming, or dancing.  Find something that works for you, something you genuinely enjoy, and people with whom you can enjoy it.

FOOD

The Idol of Comfort shows up in our food choices in a few different ways, but the most obvious is in our use of fast-food restaurants.  Not always, but in most cases the food options offered at these joints are not the options that will steward our bodies well.  But we choose them anyway, at alarming frequencies because they’re convenient, fast, cheap, and easy.  It would require more effort, more time, and more cleaning to prepare food at home, so we choose for comfort and convenience, instead of for stewardship. 

And listen, sometimes, the fast-food option is the only choice.  The kids are insane, the kitchen’s being redone, the workday has allowed for no time – there are instances when a stop through the local Taco Bell is the only option that will work.  I’m not referring to those instances.  I’m referring to when we drove through for breakfast, and then went out to lunch, and then find ourselves going three, four, five times a week for dinner.  This is when we can be sure that the Idol of Comfort is ruling our food choices.  We are simply choosing our food for convenience instead of choosing for the care of our bodies.

Commercials target our tendency toward comfort and convenience when it comes to food as well.  Millions of dollars and gitchy tunes posit quick and easy choices like high-sugar cereals, pop tarts, and pizza deliveries as the prized food choices for the day.  When these choices become commonplace, we forget what they’re doing to our bodies on a daily basis. 

Although fast-food nutrition has improved over the last few years, it should still be examined when we are consuming it as frequently as we are.  The most critical piece to consider may be sodium.  Sodium intake is directly related, and therefore has much to do, with our country’s epidemic of high blood pressure.  A quick glance at a fast-food breakfast compared to a meal prepared at home will help us visual what repeated trips through the drive thru is doing to our bodies. 

 

Total Calories

Total Fat

Total Carbs

Total Protein

Total Sodium

McDonalds Egg McMuffin

310

13g

30g

17g

770mg

Chic-Fil-A Chicken Biscuit

460

23g

45g

19g

1510mg

Panera Sausage, Egg & Cheese Bagel

790

48g

61g

30g

1230mg

1 Egg, 1 Egg White, Sausage, & Fruit

~275

~15g

~30g

~12g

~120mg

These facts don’t make fast-food or quick meal options things we can never do, but they can, however, help inform our decisions the next time we have a choice.  

Another place we’ll find the Idol of Comfort as it relates to food is in our culture’s lack of engagement in the practice of fasting.  Whether intermittent fasting for health reasons, fasting before medical procedures, or fasting for spiritual reasons, the practice is a rarity and oddity.  Nearly every world religion and culture fasts regularly except the US.  I have to wonder if this is part of Dr. Brand’s observation of the our inability to tolerate suffering.  

Fasting is hard.  It creates nagging discomfort that does not go away.  It is a moment-by-moment reminder that we are not satisfied.  In a culture of over-indulgence, it is a glaring opposition, purposefully creating a deficit we choose not to address.  It is a physical challenge, sure, but more than anything it is a mental pursuit and a spiritual journey.  Fasting breaks our food dependencies and helps us see differently and experience life differently.  It reprioritizes the day, because food, which used to be near the top of the list, is no longer there.  It frees up time and money, it clears the mind, and it allows us to experience all the things our bodies can endure, if only we would allow them.  

Fasting is a practical way to create discomfort on purpose, and to learn how to bear discomfort with calm acceptance.  

But, it’s uncomfortable.  So, again, we don’t do it.  

TECHNOLOGY

The Idol of Comfort not only informs what food we consume it also informs how we consume it.  The meal around the table without a television or cell phones has become a thing of fables and stories from generations past – an ideal just out of reach. 

But the truth is, it’s not an ideal out of reach.  It’s an ideal we aren’t willing to materialize because we prefer comfort to connection. 

Whatever the food, the method for consuming it more often than not involves passive entertainment in front of the Almighty Screen.  Whether it be hand-held or wall-mounted, it’s on, it’s loud, and it’s stealing time connecting with the ones we say matter most to us. 

Who of us can’t relate to the atrociously long day and the call of comfort from our favorite spot on the couch?  Cut on a comedy, kick the chair leg out, position the plate just-so in your lap and shut off the brain.  There’s something really nice about all that.  It’s lovely.  It’s comfortable.  And sometimes, I think it’s necessary. 

Not unlike the fast-food choice, sometimes, that’s all life allows.  The meal in front of the television falls in the same bucket.  A night of this every so often is not destructive beyond repair.  It’s the habitual tick to 5:30 PM that expects to be in front of the television with meal in hand.  It’s the not even thinking about connecting with the people in our homes.  It’s the meal in a restaurant in which we never say a word to the person across the booth because we’re on our phones.  This is when the Idol of Comfort has overcome our choices because once again, we’ve chosen our own perceived ease over connection, communication, or conversation. 

“Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.”  1 Peter 4:1 

Christ’s suffering was much more than any of us will ever experience, but the point is that it is not our inherent right to be comfortable. 

The Idol of Comfort lies. 

Our life for comfort has become our worst enemy in the fight for health.  But what remains most ironic is that the ‘comfort’ we pursue now, is literally leading us to a very uncomfortable future.  Our comfort choices today are creating diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and a plethora of orthopedic issues.  And all of these will come with ample amounts of discomfort in the future – physically, financially, emotionally, and mentally.   

I can’t help but reflect on Dr. Brand’s leprosy patients walking around on festering, open wounds.  Patients with cuts, broken bones, and infections that sent no pain signals. 

What damage is done when we don’t feel pain!  We need it.  Our bodies require it.  It’s how we know to pull our hand away from an open flame or how to not put pressure on a broken ankle.  We have villainized one of God’s most valuable gifts to us. 

It’s going to be a journey, but I wonder what would happen to us as individuals, and as a country, if we started to actively embrace discomfort. 

May we all work toward being people who can suffer discomfort with dignity; who can tolerate suffering with calm; and who actively engage in hard things to bring about better versions of ourselves and the people around us. 

This is not going to be easy.  But we don’t need easy, do we. 

The post Dig. Chapter 3. The Idol of Comfort first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 2. The Idol of Feelings

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 2. The Idol of Feelings

“Feelings live on the front row of our lives like unruly children clamoring for attention.  They presume on their justification in being whatever they are – unlike a thought, which by nature is open to challenge and invites the question ‘Why?’  The term ‘feeling’ indicates a kind of ‘contact’, a ‘touch’, that is at once blind and powerful – in allure as well as in revulsion.”  – Dallas Willard

Like many things, something is a great thing to have, a nice thing to have, a fine thing to have – until we over-indulge in it. 

Food, even high-quality, nutritious food, can become a bad thing if we consume too much.  A health coach once said to me, “3000 calories is still 3000 calories, even if it’s 3000 calories of spinach.”  And after eating 3000 calories of spinach, not a one of us would be feeling well. 

Consider money.  Most people believe more money equals higher levels of happiness, and yet hordes of research show the opposite.  In an article released by ABC news, 160 households with over 25 million dollars listed gross amounts of reasons why their wealth makes them miserable.  And studies of the rich and famous prove the same.  Those at the top are consistently the most unhappy. 

Free time.  Most of us would say if we didn’t have to work, we could do whatever we want and we would be happier.  But really think about that.  If you had so much free time that all you had was free time, most of us would be scratching at the walls to get out and find something productive to do. 

What about things like confidence, trust, commitments?  All of these things are good, but too much of any of them will hold their own set of consequences.  Gavin de Becker points out that even fear, in amounts, can be the very thing we need to be safe, alert, or cause us to act, but in too high amounts fear will paralyze us, or send us into fight or flight. 

All these things are necessary, natural parts of life but become tedious time bombs of uncertainty and consequences when we over-indulge in them. 

And that brings us to feelings. 

Feelings are a part of our natural existences.  They are normal and valuable and helpful for processing and informing, but they too, in egregious amounts, turn on us.  Worst of all, feelings are fickle. 

They turn with the wind, or with the slightest brush of a thumb.  They change at a joke, or an insult, at a TV show or a social post.  They morph with how full our stomachs are, how much we slept last night, what are hormones are doing, or if our favorite team won the game.  Feelings can be manipulated by the tone of a voice; the micro expression of a spouse, friend, or stranger; the temperature of the air, or the precipitation of the sky.  How easily our feelings are man-handled and manipulated through media, commercials, and advertisements.  How swiftly and frequently they change throughout the course of a day. 

Feelings are fickle.  And our overindulgence in them has become so great, that they are informing major, and in some cases irreversible, decisions for us. 

We are so concerned about kids’ feelings that every one of them gets an award or trophy – even if they did nothing remarkable and lost every game in the season. 

We’re so feeling-centric that we let them determine who we date, marry, and whether or not we stay married.  The moment we think we’ve ‘lost that loving feeling’, we’re out. 

We exploit the beauty sex because of feelings.  We have affairs because of feelings.  We sacrifice our family units because of feelings.  (Note here this is not all-inclusive – some relationships need to end.  This refers to those relationships in which ‘losing that loving feeling’ seems to be reason enough to end it.)

We withhold forgiveness from people who have hurt us because our feelings are more important to us than our freedom.  

We worship our feelings so much we use it as a reason not to believe in a loving God.  If He’s loving, how could He allow me to feel pain, discomfort, loss, or discouragement?  But what loving father do you know who has, for his child’s perceived benefit, protected him or her from everything that could possibly inflict pain?  Not allowing us to feel pain or discomfort or loss would be to severely inhibit our growth.  It would wound us.  But it makes us feel ways we don’t want to feel, so we use it as a reason to deny Him. 

We don’t do things we should because of the way we feel. 

We do things we really shouldn’t because of the way we feel.   

We quit when we should persevere. 

We keep going when we should stop. 

We bow, moment by moment, to whatever feeling dominates us at any given moment.  We are, without a doubt, slaves to the god of our feelings.  And he is the ficklest master we will ever serve. 

The challenge with worshiping a god as fickle as this is that what works for today may not work for tomorrow – both in the short-term, and in the long-term.  Short-term and long-term consequences from worshiping feelings can be seen in nearly all of our cultural practices and it is worthwhile to spend time considering how this impacts each of us personally, but for now I want to zoom in on how worshiping feelings impacts our daily lifestyle choices. 

MOVEMENT

Does anyone relate to this sentiment: “I don’t feel like working out.”    

Good grief, I cannot tell you how many times this thought has run across my mind – and I’m someone who genuinely loves to move my body.  Having worked with people on their food and movement choices for as long as I have, this idea of “I don’t feel like it,” is the master informer when it comes to getting daily movement. 

The book (now movie) Dune provides us a fictional example of this very real concept. 

Paul, who is in training to become a great leader is met by Gurney who has been charged with continuing to teach Paul how to fight. 

After failing a training exercise, Paul says to his trainer, “I guess I’m not in the mood for it today.” 

Gurney replies, “Mood?!  What is mood to do with it?  You fight when the necessity arises, no matter the mood.” 

How many times can you recall changing the intentions you had to move your body because of your mood?  Because you didn’t feel like it. 

Fam, for me, there are quite a few. 

An oft-used phrase in the fitness world speaks to this: “When’s the last time you regretted a workout?”

I have to admit, this phrase gets me every time, because even if it’s not a great workout, it still feels better than doing nothing.  Ironic isn’t it, that we don’t move our bodies because we don’t feel like it, and then when we do it, we feel great? 

Feelings are fickle. 

It’s important to remember that moving your body doesn’t have to happen inside a health club.  Lifting heavy things and putting them back down again may not be your idea of a good time.  Or you may be in season in which you’re rehabbing a knee, or recovering from treatment, or going through a hard time in your relationship – all of these things can impact your desire to move your body. 

But time and time again movement will prove to enhance your mood, decrease pain, heal injuries faster (when done appropriately), drive confidence, and shoot happy hormones through your brain and bloodstream.  For digestible facts about the benefits of moving your body, the CDC has unending resources, one of which, you can find here.  

Ami McConnell hosts the WriterFest podcast in which she interviews writers of book, song, and film.  If you’re a writer of any kind, you will not regret tapping into this resource.  In Ami’s interview with prolific songwriter Tom Douglas, he says something that we may find useful in this context. 

He says he doesn’t wait to feel like writing. 

He doesn’t wait for the right inspiration or the right weather or the right mood or the right temperature.  He does it every morning, at the same time, in the same place, whether he feels like it or not.  Somedays it works, somedays it doesn’t.  But every day, there are more words on a page then there were the day before. 

I wonder how our days, lives, and existences would change if we didn’t wait to feel a certain way to do the things that matter to us. 

This application certainly works outside of getting daily movement, but for this moment, consider how your habits would change if you didn’t wait to feel like exercising, or walking, or moving.  Are you willing to commit to a time of day or a modality for moving your body?  And if so, can you identify a way to challenge yourself past your own feelings when the moment of choice arises? 

FOOD

The Idol of Feelings is perhaps at its most imposing when it comes to choosing our food. 

This conversation happens every night, doesn’t it? 

“What do you want for dinner?” 

“I don’t know what you do feel like?” 

“I don’t know what sounds good to you?” 

All of these questions point not toward the stewardship of our bodies, but toward our feelings, our desires, and our wants. 

The first chapter discussed our culture’s use of food for everything but its primary purpose of fuel.  When we are worshiping the Idol of Feelings, we choose our food based only on what we want, desire, crave, or feel – not for its ability to fuel our bodies. 

The YMCA offers a class called “Healthy Weight and Your Child”.  Parent and child take the class together, and it’s offered to families with children who qualify as overweight or obese at a very early age.  In the content of the class, the kids are taught a very important skill which we adults may also benefit from learning.  It’s the skill of identifying and responding to ‘hunger’ versus ‘craving’. 

Hunger is a need.  Craving is a feeling. 

The content of the class encourages participants to consider the food he/she wants in the moment.  For your purposes, use whatever food you tend to crave and fill in the blank. 

The facilitator asks the participant to consider these questions: 

“What am I craving?”  (Fill in the blank.).

“Is there a more healthful option?”  (Yes or no.).

If yes: “What is a more healthful replacement?” (Fill in the blank.).  

“Does the more healthful replacement sound good?”  (Yes or no.).

If yes, you’re hungry. 

If no, you’re craving. 

If the participant identifies that it is a craving, he/she is coached to wait twenty minutes and then re-evaluate.  The objective is to not only identify the craving, but then to avoid the unhealthy choice by simply waiting to actually be hungry.  Because when we’re actually hungry, we’re willing to make healthful choices. 

Because it’s a physical need; not a feeling. 

Feelings are fickle. 

Wait twenty minutes next time you want something and see if your desires change.  This might be just the tool we need to start making food choices (or any choice, for that matter) tomorrow that we couldn’t make today. 

TECHNOLOGY

In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard writes this: 

“Here lies the secret to understanding contemporary Western life and its peculiar proneness to gross immoralities and addictions.  People are overwhelmed with decisions and can only make those decisions on the basis of feelings…

(In the past) individuals in their roles knew without thinking about it what to do with their minutes, hours, and days, and only rarely were faced with having to do what they ‘felt like doing’.  The overall order in which they lived usually gave them great strength and inner freedom derived from their sense of place and direction even in the midst of substantial suffering and frustration. 

In a situation such as today, by contrast, where people constantly have – or think they have – to decide what to do, they will almost invariably be governed by feelings.  Often, they cannot distinguish between their feelings and their will, and in their confusion, they also quite commonly take feelings to be reasons.  And they will in general lack any significant degree of self-control.  This will turn their life into a mere drift through the days and years, which addictive behavior promises to allow them to endure.” 

The truth herein is almost devastating to consider. 

Though this too could be applied to many areas of life, in 2023, it’s hard not to apply it to our cultural use of technology – specifically TV, film, video games, and social media. 

Willard speaks of gross immoralities and addictions; of people overwhelmed with decisions; of the constant requirement to consider what we ‘feel like doing’; of a lack of a sense of place; of us not knowing our feelings from our wills; or knowing our feelings from reasons; and of a lack of self-control. 

Do any of these sound like our screen choices?  Whether scrolling the feeds, wasting hours on YouTube, letting Netflix roll episodes, consuming media we know is filled with darkness, or spending hours posing for our social media fan clubs – all of these behaviors indicate that Dallas Willard was right on the money.  Our addictive behaviors indicate that we are governed by our feelings.  And this may be no more evident, then in our technology choices. 

Here are a few questions to ponder around our technology choices and the reality that they are now, without a doubt, nothing less than addictive behaviors.  

How many hours a day do I spend with TV, film, video games, or social media? 

How many of these hours are edifying (i.e. do they help me get better, improve, or grow)? 

How do these hours support my priorities? 

How do hours behind the screen impact the people closest to me? 

How do hours behind the screen benefit me, my family, friends, or community? 

How do I feel after I engage in hours behind the screen? 

How do hours behind the screen steward the gift of my body, soul, mind, or spirit? 

Are these questions as humbling to you as they are to me? 

It really begins to challenge what we say we value when so many of our hours are passed in front of the screen.  When we eat a meal with our favorite people across the table but with our phones in front of our faces.  When we spend a beautiful Saturday binge-watching a trashy show.  When we go three sleepless nights playing a video game and are worthless the following days because we can’t keep our eyes open or engage at our jobs.  When we spend four hours watching movies beside visiting, out-of-state family members instead of conversing with them in any kind of meaningful way. 

The unpleasant fact is that we choose technology over the things we say matter to us because we feel like it.  Our addictive behaviors are owning us because we’re governed by our feelings.  And right now, more than anything, we’re addicted to the Almighty Screen.  We worship the Idol of Feelings when we choose passive entertainment through the blue over everything else. 

I wonder how our lives would change if instead of immediately moving for the screen, we would stop to consider how else we might spend our time.  I wonder if we may avoid the ‘mere drift through the days and years’ if we chose to address our addictions to the screen. 

I know one thing’s for sure: the screen’s not going anywhere.  Just like tempting food choices will always be around and the choice not to exercise will always be there.  These options are not going to evaporate into thin air, so we must determine how to live through them.  It’s like the bear hunt book:  we can’t go over them and we can’t go under them – we have to run right through the brick wall of our addictions and choose otherwise. 

Mere willpower is not going to do the trick, but we’ll get into that later. 

For now, uncovering this idol may be enough to test your intentions: 

In your life, how are you worshiping the Idol of Feelings?  In light of your answer, what needs to change in order for you to better steward the gift of your mind, body, spirit, and soul?  And when the moment of choice comes, what can you do to avoid bowing to the god of your feelings?

Because feelings, if you haven’t heard, feelings are fickle.   

The post Dig. Chapter 2. The Idol of Feelings first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Chapter 1. The Idol of Self(ie)

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Chapter 1. The Idol of Self(ie) 

Chapter 1. The Idol of Self(ie)

“The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated.  If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because at a point way back I yielded to myself.  Likewise, if I obey God I do so because I have yielded myself to Him.”  – Oswald Chambers

Can I ask a hard question? 

What does it say about the state of our humanity when one of the most common daily activities in our culture is to take a picture of ourselves doing something like sitting in a car (#shenanigans) or standing in the bathroom (#progress)? 

Maybe you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like you, and maybe you’re not the shirtless bathroom selfie person, and maybe you’re not the “wow, I’m having a great hair day let me take a picture of myself and post it” person, but before you dismiss this, look through your social posts and ask yourself these questions: 

Who is the focus of the post?What value does it offer?And most importantly, why did you post it?

In discussing these questions with others about their social posts, the discoveries have been highly consistent. 

We are the focus of our posts.Our posts typically offer little value to the world outside the perceived value for ourselves (e.g. influencer benefits, intrinsic validation, marketing, ego, etc.).When asked, “Why did you post it?”, the most common answers were clothed in extended silences and “I don’t knows”, though the most transparent among those asked were willing to say things like, “I thought I looked good,” or “I wanted people to know what I was doing” or “I’m addicted to the hearts”.

Even in our thinly veiled expressions of gratitude (#blessed), the message we share with the world is what we have been able to experience, accomplish, or receive but framed within a context of gratitude so as to not be perceived as boastful. 

I wonder what people in the early 1800s would think of us. 

In truth, they may be most interested by indoor plumbing, but once that wore off, they would certainly get around to wondering why we spend so much of our time positioning and repositioning our plates of food for photo ops (#keto).  Why we pose seven different ways while in front of something as majestic as the Niagara Falls.  How we can sit inside a historic castle for a once in a lifetime meal by a Michelin-rated chef and miss the magic of it because we can’t stop taking pictures of ourselves at the table. 

Our obsessions with ourselves are unmatched. 

Did our ever-self-gratifying culture create self-obsessed people or is our erroneous humanity to blame for creating an “all about me” culture? 

I’m not entirely sure it matters. 

What matters is where we are, what it produced, and thereby what it reveals.  And that is the ugly truth that what we worship now, more than ever, is the Idol of Self(ie). 

The “why” behind this phenomenon would be an interesting topic to dissect, but more relevant to this project is how this particular idol affects certain areas of our lives, and most especially, how it impacts our daily lifestyle choices. 

There is not an area of our lives the worship of self(ie) does not touch.  It bleeds into our relationships, affects how we relate to our communities, and what amount of time and energy we put into our social media accounts.  It controls how we spend our time, money, and gifts, and changes how we see the world around us (or don’t see the world around us, as the case may be).  Moreover, the Idol of Self(ie) has a lot more to do with our food, movement, and technology choices than we ever thought.    

RELATIONSHIPS

The challenge with the Idol of Self(ie) informing our moment-by-moment decisions is that it cannot be kept from impacting our relationships.  Every relationship, from spouse, to friend, to child, to sibling, to coworker, to neighbor, to even strangers in the community will be affected by our choice to worship ourselves before anything else. 

What message do we communicate to our spouses when our needs rule?  What do we communicate to our children?  How does the ‘me god’ affect the community member in the parking lot at the grocery store?  The neighbors who needs help with their house? 

I imagine if you live with or love someone who commonly worships the Idol of Self(ie), it is very easy for you to point out how his/her worship of the ‘me god’ expresses itself. 

But what if the ‘me god’ worshiper is you? 

Grab your pearls, bootstraps, and cell phones, because y’all, it’s us.  It’s you and it’s me.  There is not a one who escapes it. 

I promised you we would be looking in the mirror, and I must, along with you.   If we are to dethrone the ‘me god’ we must first choose to acknowledge its reign. 

In order to make this tangible, let’s take a moment, each in our own realities and truths, to honestly consider how many decisions we make in a day for ourselves.  It may be helpful to talk about these questions with a trusted friend, spouse, accountability partner, tablemate, or in quiet reflection. 

How many times today did you move forward without waiting on someone?  Whether in line, in your car, in conversation, or in action, this could express itself in cutting someone off while driving, not waiting to hold a door for someone, not allowing someone to step in front of you, or (really think about this one) cutting someone off in conversation, not letting someone finish sentences, talking over people, or listening only so you can have a turn to speak. 

How many times today did you choose for what you want, rather than what someone else needed?  That could be time related; money related; or relationship related.  Did you choose to watch television when someone needed help with a task?  Did you rush someone through a conversation who needed to talk?  Did you ignore your spouse’s or child’s need to connect because you needed ‘me time’?  Did you stay in a relationship that needs to end because you need the perceived safety of it?  Did you make a financial spend, or a time spend for yourself when it could have been invested in someone who needed it more? 

Where, in your relationships, is the ‘me god’ controlling your choices?  And how is that impacting your connection with those who matter most to you? 

RESOURCES

The Idol of Self(ie) not only impacts our relationships, but it also dictates how we spend time, resources, money, and our gifts and talents. 

This is a blistering activity, but the most effective awareness challenge for understanding the extent to which the Idol of Self(ie) rules our resources is to document, for a week, everything on which we spend time and money.    

Make two columns, one for each resource: Time and Money.  When you wake up, start actively identifying, hour by hour, how you spend your daily allotment of time; and how you choose to spend your money. 

This is a powerful (and undeniable) revelation of what we truly value, and it is essential to understanding the truth about what we really worship.   I implore you not to pass through this chapter without doing this exercise.  It’s really hard, but it’s a great way to make this concept practical and to help us see, with clear eyes, where we are investing our most valued resources. 

When we are worshipping the ‘me god’, money, time, talents, and resources are spent on things for ourselves.  We use our natural gifts for our own advancements instead of serving our communities.  We invest energy in ways to be entertained, feel happy and satisfied, and experience things which thrill us.  We spend money on things that help us perceive ourselves as relevant, significant, attractive, or influential. 

None of these things are evil in and of themselves, but when we regularly spend resources gifted to us on our own happiness, satisfaction, excitement, entertainment, and fulfillment, we are consistently and actively worshipping the Idol of Self(ie).  Repeated resource spends toward the ‘me god’ set us up to expect elevated levels of happiness, satisfaction, excitement, and so on, all the time, thereby setting unrealistic expectations and properly invoking the Law of Diminished Return (i.e., the more you have something or do something, the less satisfying it is).  

And it’s relevant to note that these resources are effectively gifted to us.  They are not ours. 

Dr. Tim Keller does an efficacious job of explaining this truth in saying that we did not choose when we would be born.  We didn’t choose our gender, race, or heritage.  We didn’t choose our parents, our athletic ability, our intellectual ability, or our academic ability.  We didn’t choose to have or not have artistic ability.  We didn’t choose to have limbs that work, or eyes that work, or ears that work.  We didn’t choose to be born into money or not be born into money.  Though we have the duty and responsibility to properly steward the gifts we were given by working hard and protecting and refining them, none of us have what we have by our own rights, abilities, or wishes. 

Our resources are not our own, and somewhere along the line, the ‘me god’ convinced us they were. 

When the Idol of Self(ie) rules, it is the absolute puppet master, determining how we interact with the people we love and how we spend the resources we have.  And if this is true, the Idol of Self(ie) cannot be exempt from affecting our daily lifestyle choices.  If it has enough control to affect our relationships and our resources, it would be naïve of us to believe that it doesn’t affect our food, movement, and technology choices as well. 

MOVEMENT

Consider movement.  The number one reported reason for not getting physical activity in a day is a lack of time.  If we refer back to the value challenge and break down a day by the hour to discover how we’re spending time, most of us would find there’s ample time being devoted to the Almighty Screen that could be moved over to physical activity. 

The value challenge is hard to ignore here.  If we value the screen more than physical activity, our time will be spent in front of it – it’s as simple as that.  It’s here, also, that the ‘me god’ is in control.  We choose an activity that caters to our perceived needs/desires before we choose for stewardship of the body.  In isolated incidents, this may not have a large impact, but when the Idol of Self(ie) rules, we will consistently choose to sit in front of the screen before we care for our bodies.  That’s when patterns emerge, and we habitually move for the spot on the couch without even thinking about it.  It calls to us with a comfort, a satisfaction, an ease that wins over all else and before we know it, hours of our lives have passed in passive, sedentary, consumption.  And with the quality of what we consume through the screen these days, chances are we are not only neglecting our bodies movement, but we are simultaneously consuming television, socials, and other media that is actively filling our minds, hearts, and souls with things that are dark.  Now a missed opportunity to steward our bodies with movement has also become a punishment for our souls, hearts, and minds – and we call it entertainment. 

But what would happen if the Idol of Self(ie) is not in control in the moment when we make this movement choice?  

It may feel impossible to move and expend energy after a long day of work or maintaining the house and kids, but the expenditure of energy almost always produces energy, and only one or two tries at this theory will prove itself true. 

It’s reported that only 21% of adults in the US go to a gym on a regular basis.  If that’s true, we need a movement solution that will work for the other 79% of the population.  Going to the gym to sweat next to forty shiny strangers isn’t the majority’s cuppa tea, so we can release the perceived obligation that proper movement or exercise has to happen in spandex, inside a health club, on an iffy-smelling yoga mat.  It doesn’t.  Daily movement can be achieved in so many ways and it doesn’t have to feel like punishment and taste like protein drinks. 

Let’s consider a few movement choices that are outside a gym, away from a screen, and which hold higher purposes than simply burning calories… 

A family walk after dinner invites purposeful communication with each other that we don’t achieve while watching the screen.  A walk while calling a friend, a bike ride around the block to pray for neighbors, tending a community garden… all of these things move our bodies while also developing our social, spiritual, or emotional health.  What if we spent that screen time volunteering somewhere – sorting food and clothing, making soap, feeding the homeless?  All of these things are moving with purpose – not just for a healthier body, but a healthier family, a healthier community, a healthier mental, emotional, and spiritual health.  And – bonus – studies have shown mindless eating skyrockets while eating in front of a TV, so stepping away from the screen may also save us loads on calories. 

These kinds of choices slay the ‘me god’ to the ground.  These are active choices to move our bodies and do so in a way that edifies us and the world around us.  These are spiritual battles as well as physical battles and I’m not convinced the two can be separated. 

The best part of all – this is not an unattainable goal. 

It’s one choice, deliberately made, that impacts our holistic health and potentially the health of our families and communities.  I invite you to think on these things with me; pray over them; and if you feel moved to do something about your movement choices, find an accountability partner who will hold you to your commitment.  (And don’t pick an accountability partner who is nice.  Pick someone who is honest.)  

FOOD

Let’s consider food in relation to the Idol of Self(ie).  

At some point in our history, food became an idol in and of itself and a later chapter will discuss this in more depth.  But right now let’s talk about how the ‘me god’ affects our food choices. 

Our ancestors hunted and gathered food to survive.  They ate to live.  They ate what was available, what they could find, what they could grow, or what they could kill – and in all these cases, they had to move their bodies in order to do it.  We live in a time when we don’t have to move to get our food.  Not only that, but food has changed from a life supply and energy source to an art, a way to celebrate, a means through which to draw people together, or a method for processing emotions.  In short, it’s used for everything but its principle purpose – fuel. 

Here’s a simple application for further understanding how this plays out in our day-to-day choices: 

When you peruse a menu, do you search for what “sounds good” or what will fuel your body well?  Do you ask yourself, “what do I want?”, or do you consider what will steward the gift of your body in the most effective way? 

In the health and wellness field a car analogy is often used to help individuals better understand this principle of ‘feel’ versus ‘fuel’. 

Pretend your body is a luxury sports car.  Would you use diesel fuel to fill up or would you use premium?  Gas engines can’t combust diesel fuel, and if you consistently use it to fill up your luxury car, after a while, it will no longer run.  Even consistently using regular fuel in a luxury car will cause a plethora of problems, which would eventually lead to a need for a new engine. 

A luxury car requires premium fuel.  

Likewise, by consistently choosing foods that “sound good” but may not be the right fuel for you, you are fueling your body with something that will cause your engine to eventually stop running.  And with our bodies, we don’t have the option of  purchasing a new one. 

We are being ruled by the ‘me god’ in the moments when we say things like “I can eat/drink that because I earned it”; or “I deserve this because I got a promotion”; or “I put up with a lot this week so…”.    

Our feelings, satisfaction, desires, or emotions are owning every decision we make as it relates to food.  And can I remind you that I am no master at this?  I write this wondering at my own paradoxical behavior choices – especially having spent over a decade in the field!  Behavior change is so very difficult, and I write all of this as I continue to learn with you – not condemn you.    

In the introduction, I talked about how if we redefine the game we’re playing, we may change our strategy and tactics and actually start to make some progress.  This is where that starts to happen. 

If we are eating not only to fuel our luxury cars, but also – no, primarily – as an act of worship, how does that change how we eat?  How would it change how we move?   How does it change how we interact with technology? 

God gave us the gift of one body.  I wonder, if in those oft occurring moments when we have a decision to make about what we order or how we spend our evenings, or if we exercise or not, or how much time we scroll through socials… I wonder what would change if we considered it an opportunity to worship God in place of the ‘me god’.  I wonder how it would change our choices if we considered it an act of thanksgiving? How would your choices change if you considered your food choice, your movement choice, or your technology choice an active choice for stewardship – not unlike tithing. 

More pointedly, let’s consider the internal dialogue at play here…  

Option 1: “I’m want lose weight, look good, and be healthy so I’m going to choose…” 

Option 2: “As a spiritual act of worship and thanksgiving to the God who gave me a working body, mind, spirit, and soul I’m going to choose…”

Which is more effective for you?  Can you articulate why the one you chose is more effective than the other at driving you to actually make a healthful choice?  What implications does this have on how you will choose tomorrow? 

I invite you to reflect on the Oswald Chambers quote from the beginning of this chapter. By worshiping the Idol of Self(ie), we have become slaves to ourselves, our habits, our desires, our needs for satisfaction, our ever-changing emotions – and it’s no one’s fault but our own.  Somewhere along the line we yielded to ourselves, which inevitably replaced our being yielded to God and His desires for us.  And His desire for us is beautiful and worth pursuing. 

“I came so that you may have life and live it abundantly.”  John 10:10

In worshiping our own needs for satisfaction, fulfillment, and pleasure every facet of our lives is being affected from our relationships, to our actions, to our lifestyle choices.  I can see it in my life, and maybe you have started to see it in yours too.  By seeing our worship of ourselves for what it is and seeking to change it, we have the potential to improve our physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual health.  

We’ll talk about how to begin addressing this practically later, but first, let’s confront a few more of our idols face-to-face. 

The post Dig. Chapter 1. The Idol of Self(ie) first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

The Refuge Virtual Book Tour, Week 1

Rockstar Virtual Book Tours

Monday, March 6th: 

A Dream within a Dream 

Tuesday, March 7th: 

Jazzy Book Reviews

Writer of Wrongs 

Wednesday, March 8th: 

Two Chicks on Books 

Books and Kats 

Thursday, March 9th: 

Book Review Virginia Lee Blog 

Lifestyle of Me 

Friday, March 10th: 

@pages.for.sanity (IG)

The Momma Spot 

 

 

The post The Refuge Virtual Book Tour, Week 1 first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

The Refuge Virtual Book Tour

January 2023

Details Coming Soon

The post The Refuge Virtual Book Tour first appeared on The website of N. Ford.

Dig. Introduction

Dig Uncovering the Idols that Control Our Choices Introduction

Have you ever experienced a moment when you park your car and realize you’ve just driven with no mental consciousness of driving?  Your car somehow operated on ‘autopilot’ while your mind worked over something completely unrelated to the task that carried you.  You turn off the vehicle and think to yourself, “How did I get here?”

That trippy autopilot thing is exactly what has happened to our holistic health culture, and it encompasses a timespan that’s a lot longer than the ten-minute drive home from the grocery store.

Historically, we went from hunters and gatherers to drive-thru aficionados.  We went from farmers to tech gurus.  We went from teens who rode bikes around town, to teens with driver licenses who drive the 1.5-mile jaunt to school.  We went from family fishing trips to family trips to the movies with buckets of butter-soaked popcorn and bags and beverages full of sugar.  We went from playing with neighbors in backyard dirt piles to playing video games, alone, in dark basements, virtually connected to people we may or may not actually know.

A study provided by the National Library of Medicine (Church et el., 2021) explores the trends in labor and physical activity over the last five decades.  Primarily sedentary jobs have replaced what used to be physical labor thereby lowering our bodies’ caloric expenditures while our food consumption increased.  Obesity, cholesterol levels, sugar levels, joint pain, and other chronic pain can all be positively impacted by daily movement.  Unfortunately for us, our jobs, conveniences, relationships with technology, and calendar obligations have crafted a culture which has removed our daily movement at every turn.

Not only is our movement decreasing, but our caloric intake is also at an all-time high.  The CDC reports that portion sizes have increased significantly over the past two decades, driving us to consume close to 30% more than we would if we were simply addressing our actual dietary needs.  When combined with a drastically lowered amount of daily activity (and therefore lowered caloric expenditure), a 30% increase in caloric consumption is devastating to our holistic health.

In 2010, the Kaisor Family Foundation reported that children ages 8 – 18 were spending an average of 7.5 hours per day in front of a screen.  When totaled, this is nearly 114 full days per year spent in sedentary, passive entertainment.  Can you imagine how much that has increased in the last twelve years since that study?

Reid Health recently published a post-pandemic article stating that since lockdown began, adults spend an average of 19 hours per day behind a screen.  19!  That’s the entire day apart from sleeping.  The article notates the long list of adverse health effects of extended time in front of a screen, including, but not limited to, interrupted sleep patterns, lowered executive brain function, lowered caloric expenditure, impaired social capabilities, and higher instances of mental health challenges.

A lot changed in our culture while we were driving home on autopilot, and unfortunately nearly none of it is working for us.

I spoke with Dr. Erik Hayes, a professor from whom I had the pleasure of taking kinesiology and nutrition classes during my undergraduate years.  He has a doctorate in Human Bioenergetics and has studied and taught in the health sciences field for close to thirty years.  In both illuminating and summarizing humanity’s current state around character and behavior change, he said this: “The reason we don’t change, is that we don’t actually intend to.  The only thing keeping us from true behavior change is the fact that we don’t really mean to make it.”

We don’t change because we don’t truly desire change.  We don’t have a lifestyle choice problem.  We have a character problem.  A character problem emboldened by a culture in which it is increasingly difficult to live in healthfully.  

If we consider how much we know, how many resources we have at our finger tips, and how free we are to choose our behaviors from day to day, it becomes clear that the solutions we continue to apply are not the solutions we need.  

Consider our fickle and fleeting New Year’s Resolutions – Exhibit A.  Every year we make them and every year they are forgotten before Punxsutawney Phil pokes his nose into February.  

But I think there’s some good news.

When complacency in lifestyle choices becomes a matter of stewardship; or a question of obedience; or a deliberate act of worship – the way we play the game may change.  We won’t be working for a culturally proposed resolution.  We won’t be trying to attain a certain step count.  We won’t be pairing intrinsic value with the number on the scale.  And we won’t be brutally eliminating entire food groups from our daily diets.  

We’ll be working toward stewardship.  Obedience.  Mindful worship.  

Those goals aren’t better than our step goals, they’re higher.  

They’re more deeply connected to who we are as whole humans.  And they’re tied to a purpose that may actually move us to make some changes.

In redefining the game, we’ll use a different strategy.  One that means more to us; that will capture our attention longer; that will pull us back again and again because the stakes are higher than we ever thought they were.

The facts still haven’t changed.  We need to eat mindfully, we need to move regularly, we need to ditch some time in front of the screen.  We need to sleep well.  We need to drink water.  We need to socialize with actual humans.  We need to expend more calories than we consume.

It sounds simple, but we all know it’s not.

In the chapters ahead, we will work together to understand what this can look like on a day-to-day basis.  Together, we will uncover the idols behind the behaviors that keep us from choosing the things that edify us.  Deliberately, we will start to pursue those things we know will make a lasting impact on our holistic health.  And we will encourage each other to chase the things we know more effectively steward the gift God gave us in our bodies.

The discoveries we will dig up are more expository than you think.

They’re more relevant than I could have ever imagined.

And they’re so impactful, we may just dislodge the boulder that crumbles a few of our idols to the ground.

The post Dig. Introduction first appeared on The website of N. Ford.