worshipping the spirit of gluttony
After my sixth-grade year, I left competitive swimming and entered synchronized swimming for the next two years.
The summers of the mid-80’s consisted of me boarding an airplane, one of which was for the very first time, with my duet partner flying to a synchronized swimming camp.
This week-long camp was held at Ohio State University where I trained under Coach Mary Jo Ruggieri, who would later train national and Olympic synchronized swimmers. At this swimming camp, we attended swimming sessions that taught us exercises which would increase our underwater swimming endurance levels because we could hold our breath for longer periods of time. These swimming sessions were coupled with classroom sessions that spread awareness about unhealthy eating habits. This camp was the first time I heard of two ways that athletes misuse food: the eating disorders known as anorexia and bulimia.
Anorexia is the misuse of food by excessive calorie restriction that leads to excessive weight loss. Bulimia is the misuse of food by excessively eating in a short period of time and then regurgitating the food. I remember the pictures that we saw in our class session of girls with these two disorders and being really surprised that girls would go to such great lengths to be skinny, too skinny in this case. The dangers associated with the misuse of food, which is an idol, were learned not from my church, but from a sports camp. No one ever presented this misuse (idol) in a religious context, but studying idolatry this past year made me realize the misuse of food can also include gluttony – an overindulgence with food. I had been a loyal follower of the spirit of gluttony and had not even realized it.
I knew that I had a problem with over-indulging with food in my adult years, although I never equated that with my religion – Christianity. Furthermore, I never saw it as a sin or viewed myself as being an idolatrous person. An idol is anything or anyone that a person consults or finds comfort in rather than in God alone. We tend to think of idols within the confines of our churches. We tend to think that we do not have a problem with idolatry since we do not worship golden statues that can be visibly seen in our churches. However, idolatry is described differently in the Old Testament in
Ezekiel 14:3 (NIV) “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all?”
Idolatry is more than a tangible image, but a false god that can reside in our hearts. A way for me to examine idolatry in my own life is to think about the idols that I turned to when I went through the trial of my life from 2012-2019. I turned to God, but I also turned to food. Lots and lots of it. Gluttony was a god that brought me comfort. I never had parameters in place on what I was going to eat and how much I was going to eat.
Proverbs 23:20-21 (NIV) says, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.”
Being able to identify an idol and then see it as my Heavenly Father sees it helps me to develop conviction for it and to fight this atrocious habit.
So how can I truly repent of this sin? This sin that I was first warned about at a synchronized swimming camp in the mid-80s. How can I stop engaging in this type of idolatrous worship when experiencing the valleys of life?
Instead of turning to gluttony when I go through a trial, fight the negative emotions and depression with prayer and fasting. It is sad to say, but while having been a Christian for over 40 years, I have only fasted twice in my life. Prayer and fasting will help me to learn how to find comfort in the Lord instead of in an overindulgence of food, not to mention this non-idolatrous, healthy habit will keep my body healthier from developing side effects that come from obesity. Eliminating food will help me to find direction and comfort by focusing solely on Christ instead of sharing Him with an idol like food. God cares about our loyalty to Him. He wants to be our everything! Prayer and fasting are areas that I plan to dive deeper into as I keep diving deeper into my swimming journey.
Psalms 34:8 (NIV) says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.”