Date: 2016-06-29
From: VA 55 Manassas Gap - 977.3

To: Bears Den Hostel - 1002.6
Miles today: 25.3
Weather: few clouds

Hello thruhiking community! So today was our 4 month anniversary. Before reading the next paragraph, which is a passionate piece about physical health and spiritual health, we wanted to keep you from any temptation to think that we are health nuts. In reality, we don't abstain from everything that might be unhealthy based on science's current but ever changing theories of health. But we do try to refrain from a lifestyle of excess while passionately pursuing the things or the Lord. So Let's review- our one month anniversary menu included subway and dehydrated food, two months was commemorated by Fuddruckers, the third of a year mark was celebrated over a dominos pizza, and to make month 4 extra special, you guessed it, today we dined in at McDonald's. Never mind that they accidentally packaged it to go. We feel like we really set the bar though on Valentine's Day this year, two weeks before our wedding, by taking the Waffle House up on their romance package (the sign out front "now accepting reservations for Valentine's Day"). Let's face it, nothing says I love you like eggs fried in lard accompanied by a waffle cake slathered in high fructose corn syrup, accompanied by a healthy scoop of partially hydrogenated vegetable spread. So in practice, we eat the modern American menu now and then. Not romantic, you say? Who can argue with a $2 frappacino, any size? Well, we have years to raise the bar! Maybe one day we will make it to a fine dining establishment like Taco Bell to celebrate, and besides, after walking 25 miles in 90+ degree weather, including a section of trail known as the roller coaster because it crosses 10 mountain peaks in 13 miles, you would probably add 5 packets of salt to your supersized French fry as well!Now for our rant on physical and spiritual health as promised. We passed the 1000 mile mark today! That is officially more than most sedantary Americans could hope to walk in a year, even armed with a pedometer. Coincidentally, if you are looking for a walking goal that will have a meaningful impact on your health, try walking one mile for each year since Jesus came to his own, and then was rejected by them. This year, you would need to walk 2016 miles, which is about 5-6 miles a day, the gold standard for walking your way to health. You always hear diet and exercise touted as the best medicine, but does it work? We led a health clinic in Mexico last year for some missionary friends of ours and for our home church back in the states in which we told people their cholesterol levels, blood sugar, blood pressure, BMI, etc. Of the over 150 people that we screened, there were only two perfect scores. One was an older woman who walked over 5 miles a day to get to work, drank lots of water (instead of coke which is common in that part of Mexico), and avoided fried food like the plague (she ran an empanada stand and had gotten sick of that flavor). And on top of that, she looked healthy! She had two daughters, one who kept to the moms lifestyle and also had perfect scores, and another who didn't like walking as much, ate the typical Mexican diet, and had numbers out of the recommended healthy ranges. Now there were a few Americans that caressed their numbers inside of healthy ranges with the assistance of modern medicine, but that just masks the underlying health problems by addressing symptoms. You can be clinically obese and get out of breath going up a set of stairs but have perfect blood sugar thanks to medicine, but don't kid yourself into thinking you're just as healthy as someone who isn't addicted to a pill. The quality of life produced by drugs can't compare to someone who doesn't have to ask a doctors permission to enjoy the activities of life. We as a nation are kidding ourselves into thinking drug companies can produce health. But there is something far more important than our physical health, and that is our spiritual health. Paul discusses this in his first letter to Timothy (ch4 vs 8) when he says that training the body has some benefit, but Godliness is of value in every way. Increasing in godliness should be a top priority for every follower of Christ. The quality of life that godliness produces is incomparable to any other in this world. And just like there are pills that give the appearance of physical health, there are many who kid themselves into thinking that some good work, perhaps church attendance, is sufficient to maintain spiritual health. Jesus discusses those people in Matthew 7 when he says regarding the final judgement "on that day MANY will say to me Lord... And I will say to them depart from me I never knew you". So what does growing in godliness look like? 2 Peter 1 gives us a pretty good path. Peter says, add virtue to your faith (clean up the filth in your heart), then add knowledge (read and memorize the bible), become more self controlled and patient, then add godliness (literally be like Christ), which should result in kindness to your fellow man and true love. Are you closer to the Lord this month than you were last month? What fruit is God bearing in your life as evidence that you actually are a child of His? Or are you just taking a weekly church and good works pill to appear spiritually healthy when in reality you couldn't make it up one set of spiritual stairs (some little trial) without collapsing spiritually?