Faith and Worry* by Jack Crabtree

Being a parent, I have had my share of panic-stricken minutes as I waited anxiously to hear if my child was okay. Fear is natural. But fear is distressing. We would prefer never to experience fear. But fear is an inevitable part of human experience.

When confronting our fears, the most important truth we can acknowledge is that God is God, that is to say, that God is "the god." A "god" is a force within objective reality that shapes it by influencing the outcome of events. The Bible contends that, in the final analysis, there is only one god: Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. Accordingly, we just call him "God." Nothing else in all of reality shapes the outcome of events independently of the will, purpose, and direction of God. There are many gods; many different things control the shape of our reality. Economics, politics, government, weather, terrorists, motorists—all of these things impact our lives. But none of them can determine the outcome of events in any way that God does not will. There are secondary gods, but there is only one primary God. All that happens to us is ultimately planned, purposed, and executed by Him. Accordingly, the basis for quelling our fears lies in our confidence that God will care for us, provide for us, and protect us. If God intends to protect us, nothing can harm us, for nothing can match His determinative control. He is God—the final authority on anything that can happen to us.

But is there any basis for such confidence? Can we believe that God intends our well-being rather than our harm? I think we can; but the basis upon which we can have such confidence is not as straightforward as some Christians might like to suggest.

Some Christians want to believe that God will allow no real harm to come to His children. If we love and obey Him, God will reward us with goodness and protection. God feeds the birds of the air, Jesus tells us. How much more will He feed us? God wants only good to come to us; goodness we can expect. We need not be afraid.

But this is not realistic biblical faith; this is wishful thinking. The God who feeds the birds also appoints cats to eat them. The God who clothes the wheat in the field also appoints the reaper to mow it down. Likewise, the God who protects our lives from harm also takes our lives from us when they have reached their predetermined ends. We cannot lengthen our lives when God has established their limits. And God has not promised to protect us from grief and sorrow in this life. Indeed, He has promised us that suffering and tribulation will be our lot: "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20); "For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives" (Hebrews 12:6). No man loved and obeyed God more than Jesus, but his authentic piety did not induce God to protect him from the horribly unjust death he died. And if not Jesus, certainly not us. Nothing we know from the Bible can reasonably lead us to expect that we who are God's children are immune from harm and suffering. That simply is not the case.

So where does that leave us? Must we fear the God-ness of God, since God is not committed to our protection? No. And this is where Jesus' argument in Matthew 6:24-34 ("do not be anxious for tomorrow") is so important. Jesus is not suggesting there that God will never let anything bad happen to us. But he is suggesting something important about God. If we simply observe the pattern of God's control over His creation, we learn something crucial. Providential care and provision are the norm; harm and destruction are the exception. The reason natural disasters strike us as "evil" is because they so jarringly break the pattern of nature's provision and benevolence. If everyday we had a fifty-percent chance of some natural disaster harming us, would we be as shocked and horrified at natural disaster as we are? I don't think so; it would simply be a normal, accepted part of our existence: we might live today; we might die today; either is equally possible. But that is not what we experience nor expect. We plan for the future as if we will live and thrive because, most likely, we will.

Jesus' argument pertains to human cruelty as surely as it does to natural disaster. Horrible, senseless, unspeakable acts of human cruelty occur—in a reality God created. To explore how God's goodness can coexist consistently with such horrendous evil and perversion is outside the scope of this short article, but I believe it does. Suffice it to say that victimization at the hands of human evil is just as exceptional as victimization through natural disaster. We cannot rationally expect to be killed, tortured, or raped. It may happen, but it is not the norm; it is the exception.

So, experience teaches us that God's typical stance toward us is to protect, to provide, to nurture, and to care for us. God deviates from this pattern only when He has some other purpose in mind. We suffer when God, in His wisdom, wants to accomplish something constructive in our lives through that suffering. Then and only then does God break the pattern of His generally benevolent providence. This, then, is the basis for our confidence: the God who is God (who totally controls all that happens to us) is typically committed to caring for us and protecting us; and if He acts toward us atypically (to visit us with tribulation), then He does so to do some other and more necessary good for us.

Misplaced priorities can prevent this confidence from quelling our fears. Luke (12:4-5) records that Jesus said to his disciples, "I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!" Jesus is seriously proposing this as a reason not to fear other men. The worst thing they can possibly do is KILL us; so why fear them?! But we will fail to comprehend the force of Jesus' argument if our priorities are not in order. Indeed, if we think that losing our lives is the ultimate tragedy, we will fear other men because they have the power to rob us of life. But we should not have such a perspective, not if we understand the biblical worldview. Ultimately, there is only one real tragedy in human existence: that our existences should end in destruction rather than eternal Life. But if we love God, God is unexceptionally committed to preserving our souls to eternal life. God may not protect us from physical and material harm, but He is unfailingly committed to protecting us from spiritual harm. If our priorities are God's priorities and our values are His values, then this truth is of the utmost value in confronting our fears. We need not fear because no possible harm of any consequence can come to us. God is for us!

All this is fine and good. We can grasp these perspectives with our intellect. But for many of us, doing so does not stop the worrying. How do we stop worrying when our anxiety seems to be out of our control?

I do believe that the ultimate antidote to worry is a conviction that the things outlined above are true. It is not enough, however, to acknowledge that the theology of what I outlined is coherent and intellectually compelling. To believe something with one's intellect is one thing; it is another to believe it from the core of one's being, that is, to define one's very existence by its truth. But that is what we must do if we are to find respite from our fears. From the core of our beings, we must take it as given that God will keep us from all ultimate harm whatsoever and from all temporal harm except that which He ordains for a greater good. If we can truly accept this, there will be no room for fear.

How do we believe this truth from the core of our beings? How do we allow it to define our very existences? Ah, there's the rub. I know of no easy way. It is the difficult, life-changing choice that every person must face. No one can make the choice for us. No one can remove the need to choose. No one can supply a technique that will turn my stubborn refusal to believe into belief. Each of us, alone, must face this choice and make it. Either we will accept the reality of God's goodness and care, finding respite from our fears, or we will refuse to do so, insisting on our fears.

But even if we accept the reality of God's care, an obstacle to rest remains: our imaginations. Most of the fears that truly haunt us are phantoms, specters conjured out of nowhere by our creative imaginations. The imagination is one of God's most magnificent—but dangerous—gifts to us. If we take our imaginations more seriously than we ought, then they can do us great harm. Our fears are a case in point. Our creative imaginations serve up all kinds of horrific scenarios, encouraging us to respond irrationally, as if these scenarios represented reality. When we do so, fear paralyzes us.

How do we quiet our imaginations? We may not be able to quiet them altogether, but we need not heed them. Christian faith bids us to acknowledge reality and to shun fantasy in all its forms. The unbeliever escapes into his fantasies; the believer tenaciously clings to reality because to credit fantasy is sin. While fantasy can be innocent enough as entertainment, it should never, in any form, serve as the basis for our choices—not for our physical actions nor for our emotional reactions. It is simply wrong to respond in fear to something our imaginations have served up; to grant a degree of substance to our imaginations that they do not rightly possess is sin. Therefore, to fear what it is not rational to fear is sin.

Fear is natural. We are limited, relatively powerless, finite creatures. We are also sinners who tend to credit the flights of our imaginations with more substance than is due them. So fear is perfectly understandable. But, for those of us who are striving to know God and to live our lives in the light of His truth, it is incumbent upon us to confront our fears with the truth about God: God is always working in our lives to bring about what is good, and usually that means He will provide, protect, and care for us. If we believe this is true about God, then although we will still experience fear, it will neither paralyze nor rule us.

* http://www.mckenziestudycenter.org/theology/articles/worry.html

15 Quick Tips For People Who Don’t Like To Exercise
by Susie Cortright

We've all had days when we don't have the energy to tie our athletic shoes, let alone bounce around in them. But exercise can give a daily blast to your mind, body, and soul.
Here are fifteen quick tips to get you moving:

1. Don't get intimidated by the prospect of a daily exercise regimen. You don't have to run a marathon. You need only get your body moving each day. Once you tone your muscles, you'll naturally find yourself wanting to do more challenging workouts.

2. Reframe the way you think about exercise. Begin to think of each workout as a gift you give to yourself instead of just another "should," "ought," or "must."

3. Make sure you enjoy your exercise program. Some people like classes. Some people don't. Choose what's right for you so it becomes something you actually look forward to.

4. Make sure your workout is convenient. Schedule it for a time of day when you typically feel the most energetic. Have your gym bag packed and ready to go by the door or in the car.

5. Make your workout weather-proof. If you run or walk outside, get the right workout gear so weather conditions are never an excuse.

6. Make sure you're doing it right. One reason for wanting to quit exercising is injury or pain. Check with your doctor before you start an exercise program so you know you're safe in the workout you choose. And check in with trainers, too, if you're working on equipment at the gym or trying a new sport.

7. If you're having a low-energy day, tell yourself you have to exercise for only ten minutes. That will get you moving, and once you're in the exercise groove, you'll usually want to finish your workout.

8. Go with friends. Start a group for walking, running, or training. The camaraderie (and peer pressure) can do wonders for your daily motivation.

9. After a really good workout, write a few notes in your journal about how good you feel. Use it as a reference the next time you don't want to begin.

10. Start with small goals. If you want to run for 30 minutes, for example, start by walking fast. When you can do that, make a goal to spend those 30 minutes running for one minute, walking for one minute. When you build on these smaller goals, you'll be running in no time. And you'll give your confidence a boost, too.

11. Recognize that some days it will be easier to exercise, and some days you'll have to struggle through the workout. This has to do with a lot of factors, including mood, hormones, the glass of wine you had last night... Take the pressure off by understanding the fluctations. And exercise anyway.

12. Try behavior modification tapes. Mike Brescia has a good one for exercising here: http://www.momscape.com/thinkrightnow/exercising.htm. This audiotape is not self-hypnotizing or subliminal. You'll hear every message, but these messages are subtle and, for many people, effective.

13. Use a visible reward system. The effects of exercise are cumulative and long-term, so sometimes it helps to see your results on a daily basis. After each workout, put a big red star on the calendar as a symbol that you completed the day's workout. Take photos of yourself every month in your workout gear so you have a visual record of your results, too.

14. Get to the bottom of your exercise aversion. For women, if it's the run-of-the-mill gym you can't stand, try a women-oriented fitness center, such as Curves. This is a fast-growing fitness phenomenon, and many women feel like their workout becomes a 30-minute vacation--like a girls' night out at the exercise machines.

15. Be gentle with yourself. Take a day off at least once a week. And if you do skip a few workouts, don't beat yourself up, but do get right back in the routine. The fewer consecutive days you skip, the more likely you'll be to make your workout a lasting gift you give to yourself.

Great Greens for Health, Heart, and Head
by author Vincent Ziccarelli, RDN

Eating an abundance of fruit and vegetables may reduce cancer incidence by up to 50 percent. In fact, consuming more unprocessed plant food prevents the onset of many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and its complications, obesity, and arthritis.

Even conventional health authorities recognize the invaluable benefits of eating our fruits and veggies. They recommend we eat up to 10 or more servings daily of these important foods. Nevertheless, most people consume only two to three servings daily, far from the amount needed for health protection.

Loads of Health Protection

Plant foods, including fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, are rich in vitamins, minerals, essential fats, and dietary fibre, all important nutritional components essential to our nutrition. The rich levels of dietary antioxidants in these foods appear to play a particularly important role in warding off degenerative diseases.

Antioxidants are Age Inhibitors

A free radical is a highly reactive molecule with an unpaired electron at its orbital. Consequently it is unstable and may potentially react with and damage any cell, tissue, or organ.

Our bodies naturally produce free radicals such as singlet oxygen, superoxide radicals, nitric oxide, and peroxyl radical as a byproduct of metabolism, immune responses, and other physiological reactions. Free radicals serve important roles within our bodies at a normal physiological level. For example, our immune cells release free radicals to destroy infections or viruses that have invaded our bodies and help with immune defences.

Fortunately, over millions of years the human body has evolved natural antioxidant systems to help deal with naturally produced free radicals and keep them in check, preventing them from damaging healthy cells and tissues. These systems include copper- and zinc-dependent superoxide dismutase, selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase, catalase, uric acid, albumin, and other plasma proteins that bind trace elements.

However, the number of external free radicals found in the environment is rising dramatically. UV radiation, pollution, cigarette smoke, and pesticides all cause excess environmental exposure to free radicals. Also known as oxidants, they exhaust our supply of internal antioxidants and put our bodies at increased risk of oxidative stress.

Simply put, oxidative stress causes the cells, tissues, and organs to age more quickly, which may speed the development of many diseases. Oxidative stress increases the risk for many cancers, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes complications, and even Alzheimer’s. Virtually every disease may have some connection to higher levels of oxidative stress.

Antioxidants As Radical Check

Dietary antioxidants support our internal antioxidant defences against free radical damage. As environmental oxidants increase, these low molecular weight phytonutrients become increasingly important. Dietary antioxidants found chiefly in plant foods include vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, lycopene, zinc, selenium, and magnesium.

They also include a multitude of phytochemicals, the natural pigments found in plant food that not only act as a built-in shield to resist disease but give plants their characteristic colours, flavours, and aromas. Thousands of phytochemicals exist in plant foods, including chlorophyll, beta-carotene, lycopene, proanthocyanidins, catechins, ferulic acid, and lutein. These phytochemicals exert potent antioxidant properties that may be much stronger than the commonly known antioxidant vitamins C and E.

Zinc Booster

Zinc is an essential mineral needed to activate an important antioxidant blood enzyme called copper-zinc dependent superoxide dismutase. This enzyme is responsible for quenching the superoxide free radical, thereby reducing oxidative stress. A low dietary intake of zinc has been found to depress the activities of this antioxidant enzyme.

High-quality green food concentrate supplements may support antioxidant defences. A clinical trial to evaluate the antioxidant potential of a high-quality plant food concentrate was published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2003. It found that supplemental intake of greens significantly increases the activity of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase, increases plasma levels of the antioxidant mineral zinc, and reduces the levels of lipid oxidation in the majority of participants.

In line with the improvements in antioxidants in the body, total plasma cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels were significantly reduced while the ratio of HDL (good) cholesterol to LDL (bad) cholesterol had improved. The cholesterol-modifying effects most likely resulted from the rich levels of water soluble fibre and the phytosterols contained within the supplement.

Interestingly, these results were found after only four weeks of supplementation, suggesting that green food supplements may help to improve antioxidant status and reduce cholesterol levels. Future long-term studies are warranted to further elucidate the health potential of plant food concentrates.

The Take-Home Message

So what does this mean? First and foremost: start consuming more plant food on a daily basis. Load your shopping cart with organically-grown fruits and vegetables, choosing a variety of super-antioxidant vegetables such as broccoli, kale, spinach, cauliflower, tomatoes, carrots, romaine lettuce, garlic, onions, and sweet potatoes. Aim for at least five servings daily. Also, start eating a minimum of three daily servings of antioxidant-rich fruit such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, oranges, limes, grapefruit, and grapes. Select beverages such as green, black, or white teas, which are rich in super- antioxidant phenolic compounds. Last but not least, consider sensible supplementation with a high-quality green food supplement.

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