Browncoats and sloth

(Today’s Spiritual Sci-Fi Friday is a guest post from an old friend and colleague of mine, Mike Van Boom. He’s a pastor of a great church up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and a fellow sci-fi geek like me.)

The Firefly universe is an interesting one. It paints a picture of a future for humanity in a distant solar system. There, the central government exerts dictates its authority over each populated system. Interestingly, a major project the government undertakes there is to eliminate sin in humankind. It dreams of eliminating evil impulses and aggressive behavior within humanity. So it settles a planet on which to work its great experiment. The Government then releases a drug designed to reduce the aggressive impulses of people.

What happened?

The drug worked for the most part. For 95% of the population, all will to fight or pursue violence ceased. Unfortunately, that meant that people stopped “fighting” altogether. They stopped coming to work. They stopped caring. They stopped fighting for life to the point where they even stopped breathing. They just laid down and died.

The other 5% of the population… Well let’s just say they became a living nightmare. All their aggressive tendencies were magnified to the point of a reckless horror.

Consider the lesson in this Science Fiction parable.

God created people with the ability to “fight,” and that “fight” is a requirement to go on living. The opposite you might say is sloth. Sloth is considered one of the seven deadly sins; and it points in the direction of surrender; the loss of ability to fight for what is important. The corresponding virtue is Diligence; Hard work; Effort.

God wants to raise His people to new life; and one aspect of that is the ability to fight; to work hard; to be diligent; and to persevere in the face of challenges. Ask God to do that work in you!

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Everyone who competes in games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Eah-mond joy

There's a place in central California that pronounce the word "almond" very interestingly. The call it eah-mond. As in the eah of "Yeah" and sounding a lot like salmon. There's a reason why they call almonds eah-monds. It's based upon the way they harvest them. Almonds grow on trees, very beautiful trees, with very beautiful blossoms that create not so beautiful allergies in the month of March. They have a machine that comes up to the tree, grasps it and then shakes the "L" out of it. Hence, eah-monds. (Is it me, or do you hear crickets too?)

So, why this bad joke about a delicious nut? A little while back, I had written about my own struggle with food, especially snacking. Of course, I received much feedback about how it's important to snack and it's not being overweight that makes you sinful. I understand that. Snacking can (and actually is in many ways) good for you. And just because you're overweight doesn't mean you have committed the heinous sin of gluttony. But what I am talking about is grazing. That's when you're eating a bag of chips, looking in the fridge for something to snack and then all of a sudden a can of frosting appears in your hand and the spoon filled with that rich frostingly goodness winds up in your mouth.

That being said, I've worked hard at fighting against this vice, this temptation of filling the void with food. And it's hard. But I also realized that my body needs food and needs some snacks. Just not like all the time and stuff. So, after reading up on a few things, I started eating almonds and them Fiber 1 bars (which are good for as much fiber as they say they have).

So, what have I to show for it? Well, not so much weight loss but no weight gain. And a curbed appetite to boot. I'm really digging these great Blue Diamond smokehouse almonds...er eah-monds and Emerald makes these chocolate dusted ones which are good too.

I Came across this verse recently

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

And so, I do my best to submit to discipline. And it's hard right now. And to tell the truth, if I like discipline, I'd be weird. Well, more weird than I am now. And so, I try hard to discipline myself to eat almonds..eah-monds...and Fiber 1 snack bars instead of cookies and frosting.

Discipline tastes good.

How can you work on discipline?