Cost is a big issue these days with the country in what "they" call a recession.  We think twice about making our 64 mile round trip into town now, combining errands and pleasure trips with our work schedule.

We have been programmed to ask, what does it cost?

I want to challenge you to a new way of thinking, What is it worth?  More importantly, what is your life, the lives of your family and friends worth?

Continuing to eat products that contain many chemicals and little food is a huge threat to your health and well-being.  You have to start believing what you may have already experienced.  Processed food, junk food, bad restaurant food makes you feel sick, tired and cranky.

Good food, REAL food nourishes you body, mind and spirit.

I want to challenge you to start believing the truth, YOUR HEALTH IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ANYTHING YOU GIVE YOUR TIME OR MONEY TO, with the exception of giving your heart and life to Jesus Christ.

Today I spoke with several people who kept saying, "I don't have time"......they didn't have time to attend a class on improving their life by changing their food.  They didn't have time to do a detox program because they were too busy with other things.  They didn't "have" the time.  The truth is they don't want to SPEND the time they have on things that will change their lives forever.

What are you willing to SPEND your time on?  These are things that will give you more time in the end:
1.  Learning what foods really feed your body and what foods harm it.
2.  Learning to plan, shop for and prepare REAL foods that will feed and nourish your body.
3.  Cleansing your body of YEARS of stored toxins, mostly from the processed food you have eaten in your life.

What is all this WORTH?  Ask a 90 year old man or woman who put energy into eating real, good foods, nourishing their spirits and relationships, caring for their most valuable asset, their bodies.  What is that worth to them at 90 something?  It is worth keeping them at home, driving, enjoying their families.  It is worth feeling good at such an old age.  It is worth developing new relationships and interests when most of their peers have been in the grave for 20 years.  It is worth seeing and influencing their grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

The truth; good health and long life are  priceless!

Decide to SPEND YOUR TIME on things of value, not making more money, going to more events to be seen or driving your kids to more events.  Spend your time on fueling your body, learning to do it well and then your body will spend a lot more time living on this earth!

You are worth it!

• What about you, are you spending your time on taking care of yourself?
• Are you doing what you can to eat and live a healthy life?
• Do you feel like that is out of your power, do you feel controlled by other people or things?
• Share what you are doing to take your time back and spend it the way you really want to.

Yesterday a guest speaker at my Wild Oats class gave us some great advice. She said with regard to making changes in your food she had 2 important things:

1. Start

2. Don't Quit

Simple but profound! Change is never easy but you have to start some where. If you do one new thing today you are one step further towards your goal.

If you keep doing that one thing and don't quit, you have made significant change in your life!

We tend to be so all-or-nothing oriented. Change is the only constant and failure means your human. We need to take a lesson from the toddler learning to walk, fall down and get up, fall down and get up, hold on to something to steady yourself but keep on getting up!

You can change your health if you change your food.

You can change your food if you change your lifestyle.

You can change your lifestyle if you change your mind.

Start changing your mind, one thought at a time. First drink water, just plain old water, the next step will come!

I was flipping through my Bible looking for Nehemiah and came across the book of Daniel.  You know the one, where the 3 hebrew children get thrown into the firey furnace?  Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego.

My eye caught some old notes written on the first page of the chapter, probably from a sermon I heard sometime.  My notes were simply the names and meanings of the 3 hebrew children and daniel, given to them by their parents in their homeland and then then names given to them when they were taken captive by Babylon, with the meanings of those names as well.

Just in case you aren't familiar with the story, Judah, a hebrew (jewish) nation, was captured by Babylon.  God allowed it because His people had turned to idolatry and he used Babylon to bring their hearts back to Him as their God.  The 3 hebrew children and Daniel were young men, most likely of some type of jewish nobility, who were captured and taken to be raised and live and work for the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzer.

According to jewish custom, these young men were given names by their parents that were actually significant to their life message.  The names reflected who they were in relationship to their God, the one and only true God AND how they would live in relationship to him.  The Babylonians changed these important names to reflect something about the Gods of Babylon - they worshipped many Gods and were in direct opposition to Judah's One True God, Yahweh.

The names of these young men were as follows:

The jewish name, Hannaniah means "The grace of the Lord" .  The name given him by the Babylonians was Shadrach which means "Inspiration of the sun."

The jewish name, Mishael means "He that is the Strong God" as opposed to the Babylonian Meschach which means "Of the goddess schach" (venus).

The jewish name, Azariah means "The Lord is a help" but the Babylonian Abendego means "Servant of the shining fire".

The jewish name, Daniel, means "God is my judge", the Babylonian Belteshazar means "Baal (which is a false God) will protect his life.

In spite being given a name that directly opposed everything they stood for, inspite of  captivity and the total cultural change, these young men were able to fulfill the names given by their parents because they SUBMITTED TO GOD, even in the face of death.  They chose to follow the one true God, Yahweh, rather than bow in fear to their captors.

This made me think about how often in America we feel we can't do whatever it is we need to do or God has called us to do because of people or our evil culture.  That is just a lie from the enemy designed to paralyze and discourage us.  James says Resist the Devil, Submit to God and the devil will flee from you!

These young men did not take on the identity of their captors.  They just continually submitted to what they KNEW God wanted them to do and God did some amazing miracles!

Read the rest of the story in the book of Daniel.