Back to Eden

Prevention Is Better Than Cure (A Breakdown)

Introduction

I always seem to make references to the first episode of “The Back to Square One Podcast” but now I understand why. In simple terms it’s because the episode narrates an experience that clearly pointed me towards God. They say the best teachers in life are your experiences but I will go even further to say this. Your experiences can and should point you towards the best teacher in life. Through this letter you will be taken on a journey on how that happened for me and everything I learnt along the way.

Some of you would have heard this on the episode already but this introduction is for those of you who haven’t. There was a time in my life where my physical health condition became unbearable. I suffered with asthma throughout my childhood but it never made my life stop. I was still an extremely physically capable person. However, the introduction of the Covid19 pandemic exposed how unhealthy I really was. My immune system couldn’t fight the virus time and time again. For the first time in my life I began to identify as a chronically ill human being. During that year, my asthma became part of my identity as it developed into the most convenient excuse I had in abdicating all of my responsibilities. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t think of new ideas, I couldn’t exercise, I couldn’t be a happy person but there was a weird sense of comfort I got from believing that all of these things were not my fault. My condition became the perfect and most convenient scapegoat for blame.

All responsibilities were thrown out of the window but the gates were wide open for a pleasure seeking lifestyle to be invited in. At any given opportunity I will drink or smoke as I binge watched Netflix while stuffing my face with sugar filled snacks. As a self identified sick man, I somehow managed to make room for everything that produced instant gratification and I disassociated myself from anything that would have provided long term improvement.

My unfortunate circumstance of perpetual sickness was also encouraged by the healthcare system. I was given enough medication to survive and enough to keep hospital visits reoccurring; but not enough to stay away. Week after week I was surviving on steroids and antibiotics. I realised that the healthcare system had a peculiar parallel to my lifestyle out of the hospital, and the revelation sounded like this...

Instant “Cure” Works Just Like Instant Gratification!

Instant gratification keeps you unhappy while giving you just enough pleasure to make you think you’re living. Instant cure keeps you sick while giving you just enough medication to make you think that you’re healed. Both of these systems of living are based upon the principle of rapid response:

A quick fix that forces you to accept a false sense of life bound to stagnation.

A lifestyle that surviving on rapid response leaves no room for personal development. On the other hand, a lifestyle Guided by Light is a lifestyle that is led by God. Such a lifestyle leads us to a place where the principles of Jesus replace the principles of rapid response as our saving grace. These principles are preventative and not responsive. These principles lead us to a place, they do not keep us in a place. What is this place you may ask, and where are we all being led to?

Back to Eden

Eden can be described as a place without suffering. A place that we have fallen away from but a place that our hearts so desperately desire to return to. We all seek perfect peace even though we are imperfect beings. This is why we love doing things to improve ourselves such as going to the gym, eating well, getting an education and the list goes on. But our comfort usually robs us from the perfect peace that our hearts desperately seek. This is why we settle for mortal fulfilment in the form of drugs, alcohol, bad food and laziness. We are filling the void of what would otherwise have been filled on our return to Eden.  

The modern day phenomenon of personal development is actually driven by our desire for the absence of suffering. Something that we once had in the Garden of Eden (Read Genesis 2). We all know that there is a huge disparity between the reality of our imperfection and the reality of our desire for perfect peace. This perfect peace can only be found in God therefore our hearts longing for it can only be found in the uninterrupted presence of God. This was something that we would have experienced had sin not entered into the picture. Therefore I realised that the desires of our hearts cannot be filled alone. 

There must be a way, there must be a reason (truth) and there must be an ultimate source of this fulfilment (life). However, in the world we live in today, we are constantly pointed towards solutions while we turn our backs towards the solution provider (Read Romans 1:20-25). When I realised this, I had a thought that changed my life forever:

“There must be a way for me to return to my original design, even if it takes me my whole life to get there. There must be a truth even if I spend my whole life trying to find it. There must be life even if it means that I must die to the unsatisfactory things that I try to find life in!”

Jesus said this: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” - John 14:6

I grew to learn that this is more than a statement about eternal judgement and getting into heaven. This is a statement where Jesus is clearly pointing us towards life through him. The life that we so desperately seek. The life where we are guided by his teaching so that we don’t have to run back and forth between instant cure and instant gratification just to keep us going. The life where we are no longer bound by the fear of death because we now believe in the promise of eternal life.

The truth about this statement is that Jesus knows our hearts desires. Jesus understands the disconnect between our reality and our original design. This is why Jesus is standing as a bright landmark reaching out to the lost while proclaiming that he is the way. But have you ever wondered why it is so easy to accept that we are lost yet still so easy to deny Jesus? This is partly because we have been provided with temporary solutions designed to make us believe that we don’t need anything more. If you are frustrated by a lack of fulfilment through living a lifestyle of rapid response, know that you are not alone. I was fed up and I felt the exact same way. That is what ultimately led me to Christ and accept that his teachings actually lead to life.

Now I will exceed my word count if I try to break down every single one of his teachings through this newsletter. However, I encourage you all to look at all the scriptural references attached in this letter as well as the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). This where you will see how Jesus demonstrated these three things:

1. What a life of perfect living looks like.

2. How he paid the price for our rebellion towards God on our behalf so that our imperfections will never be counted against us.

3. To give us an understanding of meaning, purpose, identity and life.

3 Biblical Tips:

1. Look to the source

   He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

   John 1:2-4 (NKJV)

2. The fruit of discipline is not instantaneous.

   For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

   Hebrews 12:11 (ESV)

3. Your physical body should be treated with care. So eat well and exercise daily.

   Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

   1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)

Prevention will Always Be Better Than Cure

I am not going to pretend to you that living a lifestyle of prevention is easy and neither am I going to pretend that I don’t fall short on this journey. This is not a physical pursuit either. It is a mental pursuit with with inspired by a spiritual source with physical benefits. A quick fix and a temporary cure was never the answer from the beginning of time. Pleasure was in the Garden of Eden but pain was not. So how is it that right now we live lives where pain becomes the product of what we deem to be pleasure? We had a picture of what an uninterrupted life in God’s presence could look like. So If there was a way back wouldn’t you want to know how to get there?

10 Practices That Support a Preventative Lifestyle:

• Pray daily

• Read God’s word daily

• Exercise daily

• Eat Clean

• Try not to complain

• Start with the hardest task

• Fix your mind on what is good

• Stop scrolling just for the sake of it

• Be accountable to people

• Give thanks