The Wisdom Diet

The Wisdom Diet

Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil. Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones. Proverbs 3:7-8

Betsy had been a patient of mine for years. And for as long as I’d known her, she had struggled with her weight, trying diet after diet. Most of them didn’t work at all. But the only thing worse for her than a diet that failed was one that succeeded—because once she hit her goal, she would return to her normal way of living and gain back everything she’d lost, plus more. Still, it didn’t surprise me when she showed up in my office excited about yet another diet plan.

“Dr. Anderson, I lost fifteen pounds the first week! And ten pounds this week! That’s twenty-five pounds in two weeks!”

I could tell she was excited. But that was a lot of weight to lose so quickly, and I was concerned.

“Tell me about your new diet.”

Betsy described the latest fad diet that was currently getting a lot of attention thanks to a few well-known people who claimed to have lost weight from it. “I think you should recommend it to all your patients!” Betsy said.

Unfortunately, I knew what Betsy didn’t, and I had some well-founded reservations. The plan wasn’t well balanced, nor was it sustainable over the long term. In fact, I had recently admitted a patient to the hospital who was in renal failure. When we narrowed down what was causing her kidneys to fail, we linked it to the same diet that Betsy was talking about.

Though Betsy was happy with her results so far, I knew that the diet could do a lot of harm if taken to the extreme. I spent the next few minutes debunking the “wisdom” of what appeared to be such a great thing.

Sometimes we’re like that with God, aren’t we? We forsake his wisdom in favor of what we think will be a faster, better, or less demanding way to get what we want. But God knows what we don’t, and he is the source of all wisdom. That includes nutritional wisdom. If my patients would follow God’s dietary wisdom, they would be much healthier.

TODAY’S RX

Eat healthier by choosing fruits and vegetables over processed foods. That one change today will improve your health tomorrow.

Help me to choose healthy ways of living, Lord, that will benefit both my body and my spirit for the long run. Steer me in your direction, and keep me grounded in your Word.