Simple Fixes

I'm learning there are two things in life that are simple to achieve but both require you to do something you don't really want to. Both of these things make your life so much better than anything the world has to offer and yet we usually resist both of them until we're so desperate we have no other choice.

Counting calories is the oldest method to weight loss and then weight maintenance I can think of. It also happens to be the most successful. At the core of every diet on the market today is a reduction in the amount of food you eat daily. If you're going to be successful long term you will also learn that the calories that you DO consume must be nutrient dense or your health will suffer. This is not a fun method. We, as selfish humans, want a method that will make us look like the cover of SI's swimsuit edition in less than a week while eating anything and everything we want. Yes, I know that's a bit of an exaggeration but not much. Counting calories and making sure you're eating the proper amount of the essential nutrient's isn't fun, it isn't sexy and it isn't instant by a long shot but it is, without exception, extremely effective. I'm learning that when all else fails a desperate woman will download a calorie program on to her Blackberry, start using it faithfully and the weight will start to come off.

The same can be said for faith in Jesus Christ as the one true Messiah. We humans like our flesh. We give into our flesh on a regular basis in varying degrees of decadence. Some of this decadence leads to the aforementioned weight gain. Some of this decadence leads to life threatening illness, marriage destroying behaviour, and law breaking, freedom stealing actions. The one constant in all this decadence is that it all pulls us away from God. We humans messed up a perfect life way back in the Garden of Eden and in one way or another we continue to mess up our lives today with equally disobedient actions that lead us literally straight to hell. Like calorie counting, there is one simple fix for this but we usually don't want to face it until it's almost too late.

God loves us so much that He gave us a foolproof, idiot proof way out of hell. It is so simple in fact that most people don't believe it. There are multiple religions around the globe whose basis is in the simple fix God provided but they have added many human things to it to make it seem more difficult, thus in their minds more effective. The reality is, however, that all you have to do is believe. Believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He did come down to earth and take human form and in that human form he suffered all of the horror of our collective sins for us. He paid the price for us. He went into hell for us. He was utterly cut off from God the Father in our place so that we would never know first hand the agony that He endured.

And all you have to do is believe it. That's it. Just believe.