Calorie Count

Do you ever make that mistake? Ever find yourself avoiding the truth? I sure do! I really see it when I’m dieting. Every once and a while I can feel myself loading up the pounds, usually when I’ve been double-dipping the “French Silk”. If you don’t know what French Silk is, go to the grocery store and check out the Ice Cream Aisle.

Well, my dieting consists of counting calories in a couple of ways. First, I count the calories I burn. I mean, I get on my bike and ride and I know I can burn about 50 calories for every mile I ride. My only problem is that, like the line from the famous movie, “I can’t handle the truth.” I’ll ride 10 miles, let’s say, and instead of counting 50 calories per mile, I’ll try to squeeze out 60, you know, telling myself lies like, “I’m sure that 3-mile-per hour wind or that 4 foot hill must have increased my calorie burn.”

But where it really gets ridiculous is counting the calories I consume. I’ll look on the cereal box in the morning and see that one bowl of the Cinnamon Sugar Frosted Mini-wheats is 200 calories and that “one bowl = 12 biscuits.” Now, first of all, did these cereal makers take a trip with Gulliver? I mean what kind of bowl are they using to fill it up with 12 of those little mini-wheats? Friends, that’s a small bowl! So I’ll just pour, and pour, and keep on pouring till I’m full, and count that as 300 calories, let’s say, when the reality is, it’s probably 5 or 600. It’s the same way with ice cream. They say a serving is only 260 calories, but their “serving” is half of a cup. Look, if you’re going to only eat a half a cup of ice cream, why torture yourself? So I’ll have two servings, only my half of a cup is probably more like a whole cup. Then after all this, I’ll go get on the scale and what happens? That’s right, My diet worked! Yeah, it worked if I was wanting to gain weight! Now what’s my problem? O, it’s really simple: I can’t handle the truth. I avoid the truth and it doesn’t set me free.

And, quite frankly, I speak from experience. I’ve spent some time doing impersonating“Ahab” myself. I still remember being in Nashville, Tn when the opportunity arose to leave my meager existence as a school teacher and part-time minister of music and get a job in pharmaceuticals. I knew in my heart that my motives were wrong. I knew that I was abandoning what God had, to that point, revealed to me to be His will. But I had a different plan. I thought I could meet my needs more than God could. Even when the principal of the school at which I was teaching called me in and offered me a raise I said “no.” In when the pastor of the church I was working at tried to reason with me, I wouldn’t listen. You see, I had made up my mind. I was going to get as much as I could while I could. If God could figure out a way to insert Himself into my plan, great, but my plan was going to come first. I was an Ahab. I was avoiding the truth. I would not even admit it to myself.