Detox for the soul...

Last Monday I started a complete detox, a total simplification and purification of my eating habits. I lasted all but 36 hours before I caved in craving some incarnation of sugar, salt, msg - or maybe all 3! It happened, despite all precautions, while I was staying with a friend. The next day we got to talking about what had been encouraging for us recently, or rather, she shared with me a particular passage from the Bible that had encouraged her. When I opened her Bible to read the passage, my eyes fell on a verse that seemed more than just a little timely:

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

I'd been feeling dismayed at having to give up - albeit temporarily - my large mugs of milky tea, my favourite Nigella recipes and homemade banana bread, and was angry at myself for not having the discipline to stick to my detox for even 2 days. But, this verse got me thinking: of course if I've trained myself to enjoy eating rubbish, it's going to be all the harder to give up. It made me realise that anything that's a struggle is usually worth it.

Then I got thinking about the implications that verse had for my spiritual life (fancy that! the Bible getting me thinking spiritually!). Pulling away from the mainstream church, where almost everything seems to be mass-produced, mass-marketed and with as much depth as a wading pool, I've found it difficult to re-orient my relationship with God, and have, at many points, given up and given in to my own desires. When you're in the minority and being questioned and misunderstood by those around you, it's hard to feel like you're on the right track, the broad way sure feels tempting...

And so I am reminded, that anything that's a struggle is usually worth it...