By CHRIS FIELDS
Chris and Kristen Fields, co-founders of H.E.A.L. Mississippi (Healthy Eating Active Living)
Think you’re doing ‘nothing’? Think again!
Since the fall of man, humanity has been concerned with externalities, and understandably so, because everything that takes place internally eventually manifests itself externally. When Adam and Eve were confronted by God after their disobedience, they hid their externalities and instead of being ashamed of their disobedience, they were ashamed of their nakedness. They were ashamed of the result of the sin but not the sin itself.
According to Jesus, sin takes place internally before disobedience to God can ever occur externally, so that makes it virtually impossible for anything physical to occur without an internal occurrence first. That’s how we work, inside out. Babies are conceived inside out. Thoughts are formed and decisions are made internally before any action takes place externally. Although the thought and action sometimes seem simultaneous, they aren’t. That is why the Bible admonishes us to renew our mind with the Word of God so we can be cognizant of right and wrong and have the necessary tools to keep in step with the Spirit.
You ever called a friend, family member or spouse and asked them what they were doing? More times than not, their response is, “Nothing.” I know a lot of times to get out of lengthy conversations with my wife, when she asked what I did on a particular day, I would respond with, “Nothing.”
Truth is, doing “nothing” is impossible. Even in the middle of us doing “nothing,” some type of action is occurring, whether it be a productive action or a consumptive action. So for believers, “Nothing is impossible to those who believe” takes on a whole new meaning. As believers, we are called to always take an informed productive stance, literally making it impossible for us to do “nothing.”
Taking action not only implicates our spiritual well-being, but our physical and mental well-being as well. We are spirit, soul and body. You can’t take one without the other, and when our physical well-being is in jeopardy, it affects our spiritual and mental well-being.
When we take a consumptive action or an uninformed productive action related to our physical health, we don’t understand the deterioration that takes place internally until it manifests externally. Diseases that come against our bodies, particularly those that cause COVID-19 to take a deadly course, are internally damaging before any outward manifestation occurs. Heart disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity are the main antagonists that lead to a worsened or deadly course of COVID-19.
Before COVID-19, people were able to live long lives after being diagnosed with these other diseases by being medicated but having no understanding of the internal deterioration that had taken place. But it’s not the disease itself that causes the deterioration — it’s the consumptive action. It’s the years of inactivity coupled with improper nutrition that leads to insulin resistance, which in turn leads to the development of one if not all of these metabolic diseases, which then manifests externally in how we act (physical slowness) and look (weight gain). Insulin resistance is a result of consuming more energy than we produce.
The reason COVID-19 is so deadly is because, when introduced to an already compromised immune system, it could potentially bypass deterioration and shut down the body altogether. With so many people in the United States having a metabolic disease diagnosis, COVID-19 places us in a state of emergency — but during this pandemic, I still can’t help but see the grace of God at work, given how humanity is still unaware of their disobedience and hiding their nakedness. We still don’t see our consumptive approach to our bodies as disobedience to God our Creator. We must change our perspective to what God sees. As goes the body, so go the soul and spirit.
Chris Fields is the founder and executive director of H.E.A.L. Mississippi and a graduate in kinesiology with advance studies in nutrition. He serves as a clinical exercise physiologist/CPT and is credentialed in Exercise Is Medicine through American College of Sports Medicine.
