INTENTIONAL DIETS // S04E05 (EPISODE 48)
“Diet” can mean two things: the regimen you choose for a specific short-term goal, or your day-to-day, general food intake. Is your spiritual walk made up of a steady, healthy intake of the Word or only short nutritional spurts in between junk food binges? This week, we’re talking about intentional diet change.
BUY SEASON 4 “UNNATURALLY NOURISHED” TEES / BIBLE NERD TEE
QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON THIS EPISODE
VERSES FROM INTENTIONAL DIETS
Hebrews 26, James 4:17, Hebrews 5:14, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Chronicles, 16:11
QUOTES FROM INTENTIONAL DIETS
“We are very quick to be like that sin, that sin for someone else. But we love our own sin for the most part. There are a few that like,” I hate that I do this” but there’s a lot that we’ll justify all day and excuse away all day. And those are the sugars we’ve got to watch out for the junk food we got to watch out for and be like, am I coming to the defense of junk food instead of the Lord? Because it’s only going to bite me later.”
Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S04E05, Intentional Diets
‘When we beat ourselves up, it’s not good. And God is about good. He created us as good. He’s called us good. Now we’ve been brought back into that promise back into that, you know, believing in Christ and, and this covenant that says, you know what, you’re cleansed, you’re forgiven.”
Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S04E05, Intentional Diets
TRANSCRIPT
Shea: Hey, I’m Shea.
Michelle: And I’m Michelle. And this is The Pantry Podcast and you’re listening to an episode from Season Four, Unnaturally Nourished, where we’re talking about how God nourishes us in ways that the world just can’t understand.
Shea: Shout-out to Warcry Network,
Michelle: The Christian Podcasters Association,
Shea: Eternity Ready Radio,
Michelle: And the Spark Collective. Check out ThePantryPodcast.com to support us by buying our awesome Merch, sending in prayer requests, and figuring out how you can connect with us and some of our awesome guests.
Michelle: We just came off a marathon recording. And here we are again. You’ll hear that in a few weeks. Y’all so get excited. And that’s all we’re saying.
Shea: Oh yeah. Oh man. It was, a time of edification marathon, but I didn’t need a wall. No, that’s good though. Good.
Michelle: I was like, okay. Recharge, recharge. She’s at the wall now. No, no, no. Once you go through the wall. Yeah. You’re covered in salt and they throw you a Mylar blanket. Marathoners. My head is off to you. I sound like I’ve done one. I’ve just been there with signs, cheering others on.
Shea: I think the longest run I’ve ever had military wise was like 15 miles. I didn’t want to do it, but my guys were always like wondering they’re runners or something. I’d never got, I want to go to the gym. Workout runs, you know, five miles is good for me. These guys let’s do 10. Sorry. Let’s do 12. Let’s do 15. I’m like, Oh man. All right, let’s go. And I still hit walls. So marathon is again, my hat is off to you. Run the race. Finished the faith. No. Well, they ain’t there yet. it’s not that you’ve finished the faith. You’ve held the faith. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. You know the wall. Tthat’s actually kind of cool talking about that. You know, like just bringing that up in casual conversation because I think that, what we’re going to talk about tonight, when we talk about intentional diets, runners train, like they really work hard.
Shea: I remember my sister, was training for the Marine Corps marathon. She got like chronic asthma y’all and she did it though. Like she did it and the training that she put into it, the diets that she put in, you know, the right foods, the right training, the right, everything, you know, getting sleep even, really got her through it. And, and for someone who has chronic asthma like that to finish yeah. Was just amazing to me, you know, I’m sitting there and I’m like, what’s up excited for, cause I happened to be there, but yeah. But one of the verses that came to my mind, is Hebrews 26. It’s gonna sound a little rough y’all coming out of the box, but just be ready. Okay. For if we go on sending deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there are no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.
Shea: How to unpack this verse in a little bit, just so we get an idea. Well, as believers in Christ, right? We believe that Jesus died on the cross for us. I mean, that is the ultimate sacrifice. That is the ultimate, you know, sacrifice for sins. There is nothing more that could be done except for that sacrifice.And so when I take this, this idea of intentional diets and I, and I think of like spiritual and I also think of the natural, right. I think, you know, it’s like a diet, everybody thinks of diets. We go through diets all the time. It’s like, Oh man, it’s the new year I’m going to get on this other diet. And then we fail or we succeed or, you know what, sometimes we succeed and it felt like a long time late because life circumstances, you know, I get it. But we’ve been told how to stay healthy, live healthy and be healthy. That’s what the word of God does. It’s really cool how it impacts that for us and teaches us how to be spiritually healthy spiritually. You know, that, that, that diet of spirituality
Shea: So we live in this, this, you know, these intentional diets. Right. And so why can’t the word of God be an intentional diet. If I can sit there and think about my health and think that like, okay, I need to cut sugars back or I need to, you know, eat less carbs and I need to eat more greens. You know, maybe some proteins throw some proteins in there. Man, I think more importantly in that is the word of God.
Michelle: Yeah. I touched on this a few weeks ago when we’re talking to Andrew F. Carter about the idea of diet, because there’s, you can use diet in language in several ways. You can talk about diet being a fad diet or a seasonal diet, like for a certain period of time, you’re going to alter the way you’re eating for a goal, whatever that goal is. But the other way is, you know, when you’re learning about animals, it’s like, what’s this animals die. And that doesn’t mean, you know, are, is that animal doing whole 30 or Quito? It means what does this animal eat? Right. And so I think that sometimes it might be very fitting for us to alter our spiritual methods of consuming the word for a certain period of time for a goal. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Michelle: But if that is all that you’re doing, there’s a constant threat of a crash or a re a relapse, a rebound back into unhealthy things. And so it’s important that you establish your permanent diet to include certain aspects of God’s word, right? Like for example, what is this? Person’s diet, the Bible in some form or fashion, whether it’s minced up sauteed, boiled, fried the word of God, right? And then when you have a specific goal, then you can figure out what, how, like what method is the best. But it’s important to be intentional in that because our worldly diet, right? Like I know me, I did whole 30 and I’m very proud that I did the 30 days without breaking. I actually restarted because I put a peppermint in my mouth without thinking, and I don’t even eat peppermints, but I put a peppermint in my mouth on day two and I was like, reset.
Michelle: I can’t do it. And so I’ve done it. And I felt the effects, but, but I also know that pretty much, as soon as it was over, I was like time to treat myself. Right. And back then, when you’re first coming out of a diet, you’re, you’re looking at it like, okay, I’ll have a little sugar here, a little sugar, I’ll reintroduce these things. I completely cut out just a taste fast forward to now sugars. Again, the majority of my daily food in some form or fashion. And you feel the effects of it, but you become desensitized to whatever your current diet is, you know, as far as effects. So I think it’s important for us to translate that over into the, into the spiritual
Shea: I love when we connect on this, on this level, James 4:17. Right? So whoever knows the right thing to do for him, it is, you know, it’s like, I think of like the sugar, right? It’s like sugar is horrible. Worst than cocaine yall. Yes. You could never email me all the data.
Shea: I’ve done a lot of studies in this because of the asthma that I have and with, you know, sugars and inflammation in my bones and how they heard the muscles that hurt. So we have this leaky gut diet. You gotta remove everything. So like no coffee, no sugar. No, no. I mean y’all, if
Shea: Let me tell you on the first few days you feel like you’re coming off of a detox. Cause it’s like, I mean like headache, I mean just miserable, but see what happens is in your stomach, it’s had an overgrowth of yeast, see another metaphor for the Bible, right. Yeast. It takes over your stomach and doesn’t allow the good bacteria to grow. Right. And creates all kinds of health issues from unknown allergies to I’m talking like joint pain, stomach pains. I mean, headaches, anything that can’t be explained by a doctor. I generally tell people. Hey, try this diet, just try it. I’m not saying it’s going to be your, your, your go-to, but whatever, but you remove everything. It’s tough, you know, when we remove things in our lives, see, when we talk about sin in this aspect too, when we remove these tough, it’s tough there’s withdrawals, I’m sure.
Shea: You know, like I slipped back into something sometimes if I watch the wrong thing or I’m around the wrong conversation, you know, it’s like also it’s like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then you gotta reset. The sacrifice of it doing it and the rebuilding. Right. But in this rebuilding, what you’re doing is now you’re putting in these good foods. So this good, this good fruit, right? These good, these good spiritual nuggets that come from the Bible or this wisdom that comes from God, or, you know, the, the, the advocate sitting there and pumping you full, you know, the Holy spirit. Right. But we’re taking this in and we’re trying to keep away from the things that would bring us back to that same position of pain, of hurt of sorrow, of anger or whatever it is that you’re struggling with. Right. We want to try to remove those. Not saying that it goes perfectly, but all we’re saying is you need to just be intentional in this type of diet.
Michelle: Yeah. Like I’m not even going to walk you through the whole analogy. I’m going to just drop it and let you put it together. Okay. But what she just said, so the more sugar you eat, the more the yeast increases in your stomach, yeast loves sugar. So yeast tells your body eat more sugar. So you start craving what is bad for you in huge doses, even more. And then it causes you to rest worse, have less energy, be inflamed, have unhealthy cravings that can literally start controlling you. Right. Make you hangry. And all these other things, lethargic, lethargic, I think is how you say it. trouble breathing, taking on more weight, the list keeps going. So translate that on your own to the spiritual. And you’ll see how important it is to not. Justify the worldly yummies. Right. Those flavorful yummies that were like, oh, what’s the harm in?
Michelle: If you have to ask what’s the harm in it is time to come to the Lord with it and be like, okay, God, what is the harm in it? Cause I need to really know, because I think a lot of the times we’re very dismissive of the, this is something that Christopher Yuan said last week. We are very quick to be like that sin, that sin for someone else. But we’re, we love our own sin for the most part. There’s a few, there are a few that like, I hate that I do this, but there’s a lot of sense. We’ll justify all day and excuse away all day. And those are the sugars we’ve got to watch out for the junk food we got to watch out for and be like, am I coming to the defense of junk food instead of the Lord? Because it’s only going to bite me later.
Shea: Yeah. I just had to apologize to my boss in a certain way. Not actually the apology had already happened, but what’s coolest tonight. You know, I call him it’s total mistake. I thought he needed to talk to me. But you know, like I had a blowout, like, you know, we are in COVID, I’m a military dude, right by heart. And by, by everything it’s so tactical comes into play. Look back at my tactical days. Hm. My mouth, my attitude, my everything was just, Oh, it was horrible. He was sassy. I was sassy. So I got a little sassy anyways. I apologize. But tonight, like I had an opportunity to kind of share and say, yeah, you know, he told me what he was doing is relaxing. And I said, yeah, we’re about to record a podcast, you know? And I’m like, yeah, me and my wife do Christian podcasts.
Shea: It’s kind of that moment where you can share and say, Hey, look, I’m trying. But you know, ever since that moment though, right? It’s like a reset. It’s like, no, no, no, I don’t want to walk that path. And you know, I want that solid food. Right. I want to be, I want the maturity that I have in Christ. I want to have the discernment, because I’m training. But with, through constant practice, you know, we get this discernment through training, constant practice. I’m paraphrasing Hebrews 5:14, by the way. Y’all because we want to be able to distinguish good from evil. We want to be able to sit there like, and not ask our Lord. Don’t ask your friends, ask God. I like that. Don’t don’t turn your friends like, well, what what’s wrong with it? Or what did you say?
Michelle: I said, like what’s the harm? Is that what I said? Yeah.
Michelle: It’s like, what’s the harm in it, but you’re asking the wrong people, right. World will set you all up, man.
Michelle: Especially when you’re pregnant and you want another slice of cake and they’re like, do it. You’re eating for two y’all. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but your second is the size of a great, okay. And your grain, right? You could fit 18 grapes in that slice of cake. Okay. The second that you’re eating four doesn’t need cake that much, but have a little cake,
Shea: But see that don’t work for me. Oh no, but what I’m saying, it don’t work in what we’re talking. It’s like leaky gut. Cause leaky gut works back into right. Leaky gut. They get you to a point and then they’re like, now you can start reincorporating. Nah, y’all go. Don’t go out and read leaky gut and put your spiritual life to leaky gut because you’re going to be able to add the sugar bag. Not in huge amounts, but see saying even in little bit amounts.
Michelle: Yes. It ends up being, because I keep going back to the sugar analogy. I remember in our very first season, me talking about my problem with m&ms and how we bought like the Costco bin of m&ms and then COVID happened. And I was like, these m&ms cause that’s back when we thought flatten the curve, was it? And so I was like, these got to last me two weeks. I can do it. Like, you know, everyone else has run, not, it gives up at these. It lasted me like a week. And then I got another one on Amazon with a little extra, like, it costs a little more, but it is worthy cause this, and I just was chugging m&ms and this is the same person who had a whole 30, like a year prior. Right. And it, it doesn’t take long for you to go from having none to bingeing if you aren’t keeping it in check.
Michelle: And yeah, that’s an analogy for the world. And in the world you can be like, Oh, well, you know, a handful of m&ms a month, ain’t going to kill you. Right. But when it comes to sin, that’s, that’s where we really have to be Cod cautious. Yeah, we have to be vigilant. I like that word. You know, in 1 Corinthians, there’s two different places. One, it says, do no matter what you eat or drink, do it all for or whatever you do do it all for the glory of God. And I think that includes everything that we’re taking in, whatever you decide to commit to, whatever you decide to do, whatever you decide to hear. See, listen, you know what our pastor B says, guard your eye Gates, irrigates. And then also in first Corinthians, I think five, it says that we are a temple of the living.
Michelle: God, we housed the Holy spirit. And so we should not do anything that defiles his temple because it just shows we already are his beloved. We are loved by God. We’re also his home. He’s residing in us. And imagine just for a second, like you’ve got God in you and you’re choosing actively choosing to just bring in things that make his stay all the more uncomfortable, all the more unwelcoming, all the more messy, you know, an and I’m not saying that you should feel guilty every time you sin and feel like you’re cluttering up your temple. Like how could you do that? You know, God is faithful. He redeems anything. You have an issue with the beauty of it is he can come through and work through it and help you through. But for him to do all that, we have to be putting in this willingness for him to work in our lives.
Michelle: It’s, it’s not this, you know, I’m just going to keep doing whatever, excusing, whatever. And he’s just going to snatch me out. No, because we have freewill and we have to allow him to take control and say, God, I’m giving you the right. I’m giving you permission to snatch me out, change my heart, work in my heart, reveal in my heart. What needs to go and, and fill me with strength and surround me with those who will encourage me to move, move away from these harmful things and move farther away and distance myself from those who would enable these negative things.
Shea: And that’s, that’s, that’s loaded. I mean, it’s like, awesome. It’s like, we’re, we’re breaking this down simply like very simply. I think we over-complicate it in some sense and like, ah, can I do this? You know, sometimes we get on the I’m a failure mode or I just can never get it right. I mean, we get in our own heads. It’s like that’s yeast too. I mean, that’s yeast too. When you start going against what God has called you, what God has told you, who you are, you’re throwing in sin. You’re throwing in yeast because God doesn’t beat you down and berate you and tell you how horrible you are right now. He corrects you. And I love that. There’s correction say, Hey, look, I mean, look, he ain’t got no log in his eyes.
Shea: And sometimes it takes more than tweezers. It takes a scalpel to get them linens out. When we beat ourselves up, it’s not good. And God is about good. He created us as good. He’s called us good. Now we’ve been brought back into that promise back into that, you know, believing in Christ and, and this covenant that says, you know what, you’re cleansed, you’re forgiven. And that’s where it says, you know, that Hebrews is not a beat up verse, right. But if we go, go on sending deliberately, it, it there’s things that are going to happen. There’s consequences that are happening. There’s their struggles.
Shea: We’re going to face. It’s amazing. How many times that not just myself, but friends or people. I know that that struggle like we do, you know, we drift everybody drifts a little, you know, the, the more mature we become, the less we drift, but I’m never saying that anyone has ever made perfect in this world except for Jesus. And so we sit there and it’s like, you could see it. You can see progression into where it’s going and then, but then it comes back out. And so it just tells me that God’s always there. The Bible has never proven that philosophy any different, right. God has always been there. But we got to get away from that source, you know? Cause he doesn’t leave us. No, but we can leave him. We can shut him down. We can turn off the faucet of that living room.
Michelle: That’s what people forget when we’re talking about all of this, it’s freewill. Right? They forget that when they’re questioning God on why you allow this, why did this happen, et cetera, there is free will in play for a very important reason. He doesn’t want robotic love. So he has to allow free will.
Shea: And we control that content and we control our direction. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Predestination. I hear y’all. I hear y’all but you can make a really, really, really, really, really rough on that path.
Michelle: Right? We’re not in the fourth dimension outside time. I mean, we are here in time having to live through it. So it’s still a surprise for you, how it’s going to go and you still have to walk through it.
Shea: But I liked what you touched on free will. Yeah. That’s what it’s all about. But I want to freely follow Christ. Look guys. I have to go on the leaky gut diet again. I have a messed up stomach from the years of, of abuse. The years of drugs, the years of everything. I mean, this is a laundry list, but my stomach’s off balance again. But why? Because I liked them stinking, M&M’s. Oh my gosh. I’m allergic to peanuts y’all and I’ll crush a bag of peanut m&m’s. What sense is that?
Michelle: We were on our way to the beach and I didn’t know, he was allergic to peanuts yet. And he’s like, look what I got, I got a surprise. And he pullouts not the FA like the Costco, Costco is a big deal y’all but the Costco super mega bulk bag that up. It’s like serving 70,000 or something on the bag. And like we said, we killed his bag. This is a day trip to the beach. This, it tells you guys that we’re not perfect, but we almost killed this bag at the very end. He’s like, man, I need to stop. I was like, yeah, that’s a lot. He’s like, I’m allergic to nuts. I’m like brother, do I need to get an epi pen? So, I mean, look, we might literally know we’re allergic to the sin and we’ll still indulge. And so intentional diets also benefit from intentional accountability partners, finding people you don’t need to find.
Michelle: A lot of people are like, well, I need to find someone who’s got it all together. No you don’t. You need to find someone who’s got it together in the area you struggle with because no one, you’re not going to find Jesus, just walking down the street in physical form, ready to help you with this issue. Like he’s, he’s the Spirit’s in you. The Lord will guide you, but he will bring someone, another fellow imperfect person, iron sharpening, iron to help you through. And your presence in their life might build them up in an area they’re struggling with, but they don’t have to have it all together. They can struggle in another way that you have dialed in. What’s important is that it’s an area. You know, if they have the gift of encouragement, you know, then that’s, that’s a perfect person, but don’t go to someone who’s just as much a fan of the thing you’re fighting as you are, right.
Michelle: Go to someone who can help you and encourage you and pray for you and stand in that gap with you, you know, and, and help you through it. Be intentional in that as well. You like what Shay said, you don’t need to attack yourself and be down on yourself in your head, take those, capture those thoughts. And when the, when the Bible says, capture their SOPs, give them to the Lords. They they’re your thoughts. Right? And everything of yours, you can give to God. So give those thoughts to God, with intention and have him deal with them with you, you know, like say, look, Lord, I feel this way. I’m feeling the scale. I’m kicking myself, but I know you don’t want that for me. You don’t want me to sit here, whipping myself. That’s not the justice you have in mind, you died for this. Just like you did everything else. You’re here for me. So send me the people that have the word for me, send me to the verses. You want me to read the podcast? The sermons, the pastors, the book, like send me to the living water, the manna, the unnatural nourishment for me to permanently alter my diet.
Shea: And you can never overload. I love that part. You can never load. So yeah. So that’s just, you know, Hey, a little podcasts here for your encouragement.
Shea:I can say that I’m a cheerleader man. Cause I, I want people to, just to be hopeful, to find the joy, to just be at peace, to not have all these struggles, and low accountability partners or, or, you know, you got to have your body of Christ. You gotta have your community, your, your bubble. However you want to call that right now because, I do eat less nuts. I did say I don’t eat any nuts, but I eat a lot less, because I constantly have my accountability partner in many things, by the way, sitting there telling me.
Michelle: I’m the one that tells people when they’re like, is there anything that we can’t cook for? Y’all when you come over for dinner, I’m the one that says what she’s allergic to. Cause he won’t and he’ll just eat it anyway. And I’m like, no.
Shea: Oh, but I missed the anyway. But, but I don’t miss sin. That’s one thing that I don’t miss. When I do it, it impacts me to a point of change. Yeah. It’s a, it doesn’t impact me to a point of, of crushing myself. It impacts me to change and that’s a great place to live. This is not a new thought. Y’all this is really, really old. And I can prove it. You want me to all right. Here’s the proof. And we’re close on this verse. Right? Cause it, it just shows me so much like this is a new, there’ve been people struggling for a really, really long time. But at 1 Chronicles, 16:11, it says seek the Lord and his strength seek his presence continually. That is your intentional diet. Y’all seek his presence continually. Amen. Amen. I love talking with you. I love talking to you too.
Michelle: Maybe we should start a podcast or something. Let me know. So for all y’all out there who want to get the show notes to kind of look at the vs closer subject, cause I’ll, I’ll tell you which actual verses in first Corinthians I was talking about, but if you want to have the verses access to the show notes, all that fun stuff, just connect with us. You can send us prayer requests and support us and a few other cool ways. We have our cool unnaturally nourished merge. So if you want to go ahead and check us out@thepantrypodcast.com. We’ll really appreciate
Shea: One more. She’s got a bomb shirt. A Bible nerd shirt. Anyways, I got mine today. We love you till next time. Bye. Bye.
KEYWORDS: SEEK SCRIPTURE, READING THE BIBLE, BE INTENTIONAL, RESET, BEING INTENTIONAL, WALKING BY FAITH, PODCASTS FOR WOMEN, PODCASTS FOR FAITH, PODCASTS FOR CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIAN PODCASTS TO FOLLOW.