Lifetime Limits

July 19, 2023

I wonder sometimes if there is a lifetime limit on certain kinds of food. Know what I mean? One day in your late 70’s your doctor tells you, “You’ve got to stop eating French fries. Your body can’t handle French fries anymore.” Or you have to cut back on salt, or maybe sugar. In your lifetime you’ve consumed two dump truck loads of sugar, and your body says, “Time out, buddy, you’ve hit your lifetime limit of sugar. Any more will kill you.”

Could I handle it if I had to quit eating ice cream? I can remember working at age 11, my first real job, delivering newspapers. I had money of my own! About once a week I’d buy a half-gallon of ice cream. When I got it home, I’d sit down and eat a big serving, approximately a fourth of the carton. After supper I’d finish the rest. I love ice cream! Will I hit my lifetime limit soon and have to give it up?

There are other foods I would not want to put aside forever. I love liver. I love pizza. I love cottage cheese. It almost seems like my body has a physical need for these things at times. Am I addicted?

I know the old law of calories, which says we must burn as many calories per day as we take in, or we’ll gain wait. I have experienced the truth of this adage. Excess weight shortens a life.

So if I had to choose between giving up ice cream or pizza or cottage cheese or liver, and living a little longer in order to be of service to God in this world, or just enjoying all my favorite foods, what would I decide? In other words, list these things in order: Ice cream, pizza, God, cottage cheese, liver.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20