S5 E30 - I like to eat, eat, eat, chicken and tomatoes

I love chicken and tomatoes. I eat them every week, and they are in many of the meals that we make as a family. However, after getting allergy testing done, it turns out my love for them might be what has been fueling a lot of my health issues. I'm allergic to them both. 

Sin works that way in our lives too, doesn't it? Before we came to Christ, we participated in the flesh every day. Things we didn't know were wrong, things we didn't know were killing us spiritually. But when we came to a knowledge of the truth, we had to make a change. 

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Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 5 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Let’s grow together! 

I love to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas! That song is forever burned into my brain after having gone through the infant & toddler stage with three children. I’ve always loved those songs, however, because it helped teach our children to eat healthy. We try to focus on a lot of whole foods in our household. Very little pre-packaged food, limited fast food, and a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. Among many other stapples in my diet like eggs, cottage cheese, blueberries, avocados, fish, etc. are especially chicken and tomatoes. Kylie will frequently make homemade sauces and soups that are tomato based, and of course chicken goes with everything. It is a high source of protein and very easy to prep and pair with other foods. Plus, Chick Fil A just happens to be the best food on the planet, we are there as often as the budget allows us to be! All of my favorite meals at CFA include both chicken and tomatoes, whether it’s a sandwich meal or a salad. Outside of coffee or potatoes, they are probably two of the top foods I consume week in and week out. 

Why am I sharing this? Well, over the past several years, I have been dealing with an incredible amount of sinus issues. Since we moved to Danville over 6 years ago, I have dealt with over 20 sinus infections & ear infections! I never had these issues before moving to Kentucky, but apparently, I’m not alone. The more I talked with others, they encouraged me to get allergy testing and see if I would need allergy shots – sharing that they themselves had to go this direction because of their own sinus issues. For the longest time I just dealt with it, but over the past year especially I’ve had other things pop up. Feeling lethargic, gut issues, skin issues, and other health annoyances have continued to pop up. So, I finally made an appointment to have allergy testing done this past Monday. They ran the whole gambit, poking & scratching me 86 times to test for all kinds of trees, grasses, animals, and foods. As my results came back, it turns out I’m allergic to the entire state of Kentucky. I am allergic to six different types of local trees, twelve different types of grass & weeds, and thirteen different types of molds. Needless to say, I’m definitely going to need allergy shots for a while until my body finally decides to be okay living here in Kentucky. 

But that wasn’t all – they tested for all kinds of foods I am allergic too as well. The results…soybean, tomatoes, and chicken!!! Two of my favorite foods that I eat week in and week out! I asked my doctor and did more research, and a chicken allergy is extraordinarily rare – less than 1% of the adult population has it. There is a possibility that I can work these back into my diet at some point, but for now I need to cut these foods out entirely as they might be the contributing factors to so many of my strange health symptoms. Who knew that the things I was consuming every day were the very things that were causing so many problems in my life, and I had no clue! Time will tell if these have a major or minor impact, but as for now, goodbye Chick-Fil-A, you will be sorely missed. 

While you very likely do not have a chicken allergy like myself, there is something that we absolutely have in common. An underlying problem that especially before we came to Christ, we did not even realize we had. That problem is sin. Consider the words that Paul shares with the church of Ephesus, “Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.” (Eph. 4:17-19) 

I want you to think back to your life before Christ. Think about the way that you lived, the way that you thought, the things you aspired to? What kind of words would you use to describe those things? I think Paul does a pretty good job of summing it up for me – ignorant, dark, and callous. Before I came to a knowledge of the truth, and really believed and owned that truth, I was participating in all kinds of things that I was ignorant about. I had no idea about the emotional and spiritual damage they were actually doing in my life. This is the picture the Paul paints for all of us – that we all had things that on a daily basis we participated in, consumed, thought or did that were killing us spiritually – and we had no clue. 

The Proverb writer will warn about the nature of sins destruction, despite our ignorance of it. In Proverbs 5, as Solomon warns his sons to stay away from sexually immoral women, he tells them, “Her feet go down to death; her steps head straight for Sheol. She doesn’t consider the path of life; she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable.” (vv. 5-6) There is nothing new under the sun, is there? There are those living today in ways that are leading themselves and others to spiritual death, and they are completely ignorant of it. They don’t see what they are doing as harmful, destructive, or wrong. It is not until one is willing to come to a knowledge of the truth and listen to wisdom that we can see the error of our ways. Consider Proverbs 1:20-33, 
 
 “Wisdom calls out in the street; she makes her voice heard in the public squares. She cries out above the commotion; she speaks at the entrance of the city gates: “How long, inexperienced ones, will you love ignorance? How long will you mockers enjoy mocking and you fools hate knowledge? If you respond to my warning, then I will pour out my spirit on you and teach you my words. Since I called out and you refused, extended my hand and no one paid attention, since you neglected all my counsel and did not accept my correction, I, in turn, will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when trouble and stress overcome you. Then they will call me, but I won’t answer; they will search for me, but won’t find me. Because they hated knowledge, didn’t choose to fear the Lord, were not interested in my counsel, and rejected all my correction, they will eat the fruit of their way and be glutted with their own schemes. For the apostasy of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to me will live securely and be undisturbed by the dread of danger.”

My friends, if you have yet to come to Christ and obey him, it’s time you take a “spiritual allergy test”. Open up the word of God and use it as a mirror for your life – are you walking in the light, or walking in darkness? The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It will serve to expose sin in our life and point out the error of our ways that we must repent from and change. The things that we’ve participated in day in and day out and had no idea of how wrong and destructive they were to our lives and the lives of those around us. My prayer is that you listen to wisdom, stop consuming sin, and taste and see that the Lord is good. 

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 5 episode 30 – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped every Friday, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating or most importantly share it with someone else – it would help to reach others that I never could alone.  And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.