I started the Daniel bible study by Beth Moore yesterday, and some things Beth talked about last night are weighing heavy on my brain. The gist of the study so far is that we will be taking Daniel's story which happened around 600bc and applying it to our lives as young women in the 21st century. It sounds like a long shot (I mean, can you imagine Pres. Bush throwing someone in a pit of starving lions over disobedience to the law? ...Ok, don't answer that) but in our first chapter I've already taken a lot from it. What she said has colored my world differently. If you've never done a Beth Moore study before, basically you watch a 1 hour video of her speaking at some sort of retreat or event or something, and you have your notes in your student book with spots to fill in words and things like that. A lot of small groups will spend another hour after the video discussing it and applying it to their lives, but we didn't. We chose to leave soon after the video was over so our minds would be on it and it would be fresh to us through the whole week. Another thing the study has is about a page of book work for 5 days out of the week.
The biggest thing she talked about last night was over indulgence, and this is the theme of my blog for today. She talked about how Babylon was a physical place then, but while it has lost all of it's beauty, charm, and power as a physical place (I mean it's literally the pit of Hell right now, Babylon is modern day Bagdhad), it has become an attitude and a state of mind. In terms of Babylon's "attitude", the first thing we looked at was the description of Babylon's people in Isaiah, where he said their attitude said "I am, and there is none besides me". Basically, Babylonia was a selfish, over-indulgent, id-centric people. They worshipped their patron god by having sex on his altar, and their priestesses doubled as prostitutes (I believe I read that they considered sex with a priestess purifying). They ate only the most decadent of foods, and held money, fame, intellegence, and beauty before all else.
Before I continue, I need to throw in a conversation I had with a good friend (and the minister who is officiating the wedding) so you will understand the vein I am following with this. It's fairly deep Christian theology, so my feelings won't be hurt if you dip out, but consider yourself warned. Basically, in the Old Testament, God's relationship with people was of a physical nature. Not sexual-physical, but literally had to do with people, places, and things. God had a chosen people, like, literally a whole nationality or a country. He promised them land, as long as they observed His laws and worshipped Him alone. He resided in the holiest of holies in His temple in Israel, and you had to come to the tabernacle in order to purge your sins (by sacrifice), and worship Him. His commandments were of a physical nature- basically don't steal someone else's stuff, don't kill someone, honor your parents, etc. In order to maintain a relationship with him, and you had to continually burn sacrifices to levy the weight of your sins. Then Jesus came. According to prophecy, He came, He lived, and He died. When He rose on the 3rd day, the curtain that seperated the holiest of holies from the rest of the temple was rent top to bottom, and that entered humanity into a new covenant with God. When Christ talked about the 10 commandments in the New Testament, he added to "love your neighbor as yourself". It sounds simple, but that literally means think of those around you as often or more as you think about yourself. Put that person before you- if they're hungry, feed them as you would feed yourself. If they're cold, clothe them as you would clothe yourself. It sounds elementary, but it is actually very deep. What was once an entirely physical relationship with our God, where we had to buy our salvation by the dropping of blood on the altar is now an entirely spiritual relationship with God. Our salvation is forever bought and paid for by the shedding of His Son's blood, and we no longer have to make these physical sacrifices in order to come into God's presence. Where we once had to travel 100's, sometimes 1000's of miles to worship at the Tabernacle and make sacrifices, now we can simply bow our heads and pray or sing a song from wherever we are because of the Holy Spirit, and that is described in scripture as a fine incense in the eyes of our Lord. Before God's chosen people were literally a nationality, now we are all God's chosen ones because of Christ. Where the promised land was literally a city on a hill in the middle east, now our promised land is Heaven.
So, my question is this: If Babylon was a physical place in the Old Testament, is the Babylon of today a spiritual/mental place? I believe it is. The thing is though, I don't believe it's an American train of thought. I feel like our culture as a global free-thinking society (whether it's America, England, France, Italy, Sweden or anywhere else that's out from under the thumb of a dictator) is a modern Babylonia. It says in the first chapter of Daniel that the book's namesake was chosen because he was a blue blood, handsome, intellegent, young, and trainable. Those things made him the most qualified for the job and were the best superlatives to have. In our society today, what makes us the most qualified? Who we know, being beautiful, being young, and being trainable. People lose sight of the fact that God created us all differently and gave us all gifts to be used. The most "usable" people are the ones with the most face-value.
My next question is what is over indulgence in today's society? In the old testament, it was literally food and sex. Daniel, Shadrack, Meschack, and Abednego went so far as to refuse the highest luxury of the land- food from the king's table, and chose to live a vegetarian lifestyle in order to buffer the culture that lived off of over abundance and to set themselves apart. I think this is a question that could easily be answered with a sunday school cliche, but I'm not here for that. I really want to know what the things are in the 21st century that encourage us to lead the lifestyle because I think it's a whole lot deeper than food. If our relationship with God is entirely spiritual as upposed to only physical through Christ, I feel that self-indulgence runs deeper than anything tangible. I feel that it is at the very root of our beings.
How will I apply this to my life? How am I over indulgent? I know I am over indulgent to the point of being obsessed with food. But is the type of food I'm eating the problem, or is my attitude towards food the problem? I think my problem with food isn't the food itself, I think it's the feeling it gives me. I allow it to comfort my pain instead of turning to God to comfort my pain. That sounds kind of like the proverbial golden calf to me. I'm looking to something tangible and physical that looks good, feels good, smells good, and tastes good to cure a very emotional, mental, spiritual pain. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that not only is this breaking one of the commandments, it's also very stupid. How is something physical and tangible going to heal a wound that is deep down in the core of who I am- deeper than skin, muscle, tissue, or bone? If you use antiseptic and bandaids to cure a physical boo boo, what do you use to cure a mental/spiritual/emotional boo boo? I feel like this particular issue has the potential to become a stronghold in my life if I don't ax it now. A prime example is this morning, and I'm still shaking in my boots a little over it. It freaks me out just a bit. I got out of bed and my mind was still running a mile a minute over the study from last night. I was considering the meaning of self indulgence when all of the sudden, it hit me to the point of slapping me across the face -literally, it jolted me to the core. I was wondering what I would eat for breakfast. I know that's not a huge deal and is an everyday question for many people, but here was my red flag: I wasn't hungry, and I was relishing the idea of putting something delicious in my mouth waaay too much for it to be healthy. My thought went immediately to this new doughnut chain that openned up about 5 minutes from the office, and once it was there in my mind, it never left. I was all about it for about 5 minutes when I remembered the commitment I had made to myself and my small group to be less over indulgent. That's when the crap hit the fan. Every couple of minutes the thought would run across my mind, and every time I felt it in my bones. By the time I got in the car, my insides were shaking. At that moment I resolved that I would fast until the feeling went away, however many meals I would end up missing. Not only did I resolve to, I felt like I was being called to. So, I decided to do a liquid fast. The whole entire way to work, it plagued me. It almost paralyzed me. An excuse I could make for myself would run across my mind, and I thought of several loopholes I could jump through to feed my need. Every time I passed somewhere that I could turn at to take me to a bakery, I felt some of the pressure come off. I got inside, passed up on chik-fil-a biscuits, and finally took one of my co-workers up on her offer of a jar of chicken bullion cubes over the microwave she keeps here to make chicken soup in the microwave. I prayerfully drank my breakfast, and after I did my Bible study for the day the feeling was gone. I ate a normal lunch (albiet a little more healthy than usual), and I feel incredibly pure and relieved. I feel like I've been washed clean. I think that's what I'm going to do. When I feel the temptation like I did this morning, I think I'm going to fast for that meal whether it's a hard, no food fast, or simply a liquid fast.
How else could I be over indulgent?
He turned 1 year old on December 13th, and our 1 year anniversary was January 27th. He's incredibly smart. He knows how to sit, stay, say please (beg), drop it, and is house broken even though we haven't had one training session. We paper trained him when he lived with Jason in his apartment, but when he moved back into Jason's parent's house with Jason, he house broke himself. His favorite activity is chasing his tail and playing fetch with his stuffed armadillo. He responds to 3-word sentances. People may say that dog's don't understand words, but I swear he has the vocabulary of a 3 year old. My favorite thing he does is when he hops up and down like a bunny because he's really excited about something instead of jumping with his front legs, or when he tries to use his front paws like hands because that's what he sees us doing. He has a very strong pack mentality and is the peace keeper with me and Jason. He knows Jason's the pack leader, I'm the second in command, and he's the squirt at the bottom of the totem pole, so he tries to keep us together and is happiest when we're all snuggled up together on the couch. It freaks him out when Jason and I are upset with each other and he seems to get worried when Jason and I are in seperate rooms. I'm not sure if it's a behavioral problem or an anxiety problem or not, but it's really endearing. 
