God’s Transformational Gift (edit, back)
08/30/2010
Between 1994 and 2006, the already alarming worldwide diabetes epidemic skyrocketed an additional 25 percent. As of 2006, more than 40 percent of individuals 20 or older had diabetes or prediabetes. Based on these numbers, it is safe to assume that most of us have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the time we turn 40.
Undoubtedly, diabetes is one of the biggest threats to our health. The key question is, which group are you in? Are you satisfied with being in the majority—in the group that has significant blood sugar problems—or are you paying attention to early risk factors and reversing them with lifestyle strategies given to our church over a hundred years ago through “the pen of inspiration”?
As Christians who are passionate about serving others, we sometimes forget to personalize the messages we promote. We fail to recognize our own health risks. Because the health message was specifically designed to amplify the good news of the gospel, failure to apply it to our own lives leads to spiritual impotency over time.
Each of us has inherent weaknesses—“chinks in our armor,” so to speak. Day by day, we subconsciously choose how to respond to these “chinks.” When we’re younger—in our teens and 20s—it’s easy to deny the weaknesses that are germinating within us. As we age into our 30s and beyond, it becomes harder to ignore chronic health problems. We become fatalistic and assume that declining health is an inevitable result of getting older.
It’s true that our health can be expected to decline profoundly during middle age. But that isn’t the path God wants for us. He has gifted us with an amazing health message that has the power to cause genetic transformation. As with all of God’s gifts, the gift of health and healing can only be accessed through faith, defined by C.S. Lewis as “the art of holding onto things we once knew to be true, in spite of changing circumstance and moods” (my paraphrase).
To find out whether you have a tendency toward diabetes or pre-diabetes, talk to your health provider. Ask to undergo a two hour glucose tolerance test that includes glucose (fasting, one-hour, and two-hour), insulin (fasting and two-hour) and hemoglobin A1c.
Testing your blood is to your physical health what studying the Bible is to your spiritual health. It awakens you to potential risk and reveals any crisis you may already be in, ultimately motivating you to seek healing from Jesus.
“He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the Gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin” (Desire of Ages 103-104).
This awakening allows Him to transform your life.