From the Body by God e-Newsletter

Winston Churchill once asked one of the allied forces pilots how he was doing. The pilot responded, “I’m doing my best sir.” Churchill replied, “Your best is not good enough, you have to do what you must.”

God is all-powerful. If He is limited to doing only that which we call good, we could not call Him the Almighty. He would only command part of the universe, and there would exist someone more powerful to worship than He, watching and judging His acts.

Why does He allow suffering? Why does He not spare pain for those who love Him? Why does He allow His enemies to obtain glory? No one knows, but a reason does exist. You can only hope to learn it one day.

There is a reason for everything under the sun. If you make one decision, it could appear disastrous at the time. Things and people may even die, but you must choose. All man’s strength lies in the power of his or her decisions. Choices are difficult. Even more difficult is defining a path for oneself. The meaning of your life is whatever you want it to be. You must learn the difference between temporary and lasting:

• What is temporary? The problems of this world.
• What is lasting? The lessons of the problems of this world.

Problems always happen, it’s unavoidable. You need discipline and patience to overcome them, and hope. When that no longer exists, you have lost your faith. You do not possess the energy to fight against the impossible, attempting to be problemless.

It’s not a question of hope in the future. It’s a question of recreating your own past. When you realize that the pains of your past were only learning experiences that gave you the wisdom, ability, and experience of today, you can turn your entire life into one divine and glorious adventure filled not by tragedies but by gifts of knowledge and experience from God.

If there’s one elemental truth in life that must never cease to be understood it’s that: “The past does not equal the future.” Jesus said, “I’ve made it all new!” If you are not living that truth, then what was His death for? When you say, “I’ve got bad luck;” “I already tried living a healthier lifestyle and it doesn’t work;” “Relationships never amount to good things for me;” “I’m incapable of making money;” “I’m just…” Then you’re letting your past equal your future. Because you’re denying the most important truth in the universe, you’re doomed to experience your past over and over again… As it’s said, “Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Many people have passed through my talks, offices, read my books, watched my videos, and heard my CDs. Some will find success, some of these people will grow old having never found health, joy, or prosperity because they carried with them, along with the weight of their present pain, the weight of their earlier failures and information given to them by others who also will become sick and suffer. Their past has left them fearful, lacking the confidence to take risks, to endure, to discipline, and to learn something new.

Remember, God says “ABOVE ALL ELSE, I pray that you prosper and be in good health.” “ABOVE ALL ELSE!!” I believe that people who experience this have profited from every moment of life. To these people, life was a constant stream of challenge and triumph, challenge and triumph – and would go on being one. The triumphs may have been soulful ones only, but victory just the same. (”Even as thy soul prospers.”) They will achieve everything they desire-that God desires for them-because they are not limited by the frustrations of the past. They think for themselves. They are disciplined and consistent in their efforts. They seek knowledge that they will apply so that they will add health and prosperity. No matter what happened before and what happens now.

The successful, healthy, and happy do not do their best. Human best often falls way short. They do what they must!

How to radically and immediately change your life through Natural Order

There’s a very well known piece of Bible scripture used both in and out of religious circles that says, “Where there is no vision, people perish.” Deeper translations tell us that it actually says prophetic vision or a revelation from God, and that perish can also be, “cast of restraint” or “run around in circles.” What we learn here is that if God isn’t showing us how to manage our lives, we pretty much have no discipline, self control, and further kill ourselves by running around like chickens with our heads cut off. With the current record numbers of stress, anxiety, and depression and the issues they cause: abuse, suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, and a generalized failure to become a productive adult we’re seeing in both children and adults, I’d say that’s a pretty accurate representation of life for most people in the new millennium.¹

So, how do we get out of this? What can God reveal to us (revelation) so that we get a vision for our lives that others can also see and follow?

I write quite a bit on the way God designed us to live. Interviewers often ask me the question, “Did God specifically tell you this?” The answer is that I don’t know that I’ve specifically heard an audible voice, be we can all use some common sense, Biblical insights, and some science to figure out how to align ourselves with God’s intentions or what we can call “Natural Order.”

NATURAL ORDER AND FOOD

I picked up a package of blueberry bagels recently in a grocery store. When I looked at the label, blueberries were not in the ingredient list. In fact, there wasn’t even blue or purple dye. There were a number of chemical dyes, that in combination, made what they called “purple and blue colored chips” for the appearance of blueberries. Additionally, a number of other chemicals were added to preserve freshness so that you don’t necessarily have to eat the bagels in this millennium.

So here’s the nutritional lesson that will change the way you think about food and help you to understand how God ordered you to eat.

Natural Order says, “Don’t eat the blueberry bagels.”

• Anything unnatural called a “Colorings, chemical, preservative, artificial…” will cause a chemical reaction in your body. If it’s “Unnatural,” then it can’t be Natural Order to swallow.
• Flour was originally a grain with germ, bran, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals. Eliminating all that God created that’s good in grain to create a white, easy to use powder is out of Order.
• If something is supposed to go bad, then it should be frozen or eaten before it goes bad. To use chemicals to “retard spoilage” so that it stays soft and good just isn’t right. If it can sit on your shelf forever, and even the bugs won’t eat it, then neither should you.
• There are no food items designed for human consumption that have more than 12 letters and that you can’t pronounce or understand.

THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE LESSON OF THE BLUEBERRY BAGEL. NATURAL ORDER AND OUR BRAINS.

In simpler times, we’d get up and interact with our parents. Someone would make breakfast, the family would sit down, and we’d discuss our day. This was repeated in the evening as well as interacting with the other families in the neighborhood and finding out about their day.

While mom and dad worked, there wasn’t much for kids to do if they sat around. No Gameboys, no X-box, no DVDs, no iPods, no Disney channel, no cartoon channel, and no computers. Just a couple of bad shows a day for kids-at 3:30 and 6pm-on 3 channels, and one good time for cartoons on Saturday mornings. Therefore, kids were forced to create something to do, to perform challenging games and activities, interact socially with friends, and God-forbid in today’s world-run, bike, and get some exercise. This former way of life, although we didn’t know it, was the Natural Order.

How do I know that? First, it makes sense. Second, it’s living a more natural life. But, finally, recent research on the brain has revealed that challenge, creativity, social interaction, and physical movement are the ways our brains develop and stay healthy. Additionally, by plugging into higher learning and organizations with meaning, purpose, and strong values-we thrive. In other words, when we connect to leadership with vision, we don’t perish.

On the other hand, littler social interaction, a lack of challenging games, a lack of the need for creativity, staring at TVs and computer screens, inactivity, and a lack of exercise is incredibly damaging to our brains. Our disconnection from our family, friends, and all of society, and our brains taking in passive information is completely our of Order. As a result, there’s a massive decline in our mental health and our emotional IQ. This, of course, equals some decline of our spiritual health.

Natural Order is revelation-a prophetic vision you need to have for your life. Without it in any area of your life, you’ve been running around in circles, without discipline or restraint. The result can be a perishing of anything up to and including your life or the lives of those around you.

We can go on and on and get into more and more specifics on lifestyle-and we will in future articles. However, I hope you’re getting the picture. Are you living your life according to design? Are you eating like you were intended? Are you moving (exercising) like it was ordered, or are you sedate? Do you handle stress on your own or through Biblical principles? Do you manage your time so as to make sure that what’s most important-faith, family, and health-are invested in first and foremost, or are you just squeezing in these things and being more efficient than effective?

He didn’t tell me specifically, but these are several of the questions I’m now asking you. Are you going by man’s order or God’s (Natural) Order?