People do all kinds of things when it comes to managing their weight. For instance, to lose a lot weight fast, my obese uncle told me he was going to have his stomach stapled. To me, that sounds like something you could do at work.

OBESE UNCLE: Bill, I need to drop a few pounds in a hurry. Could you staple my stomach here in the cubicle? Just use that new Swingline 2400 on me.

BODACIOUS BILL: Right after I fax off this gallbladder for Mr. Anderson, I’d be glad to.

So the family shows up at the hospital to hang out in the waiting room and we start getting hungry. Somebody offers to make a food run. And I’m like, “Just get me something simple like a quadruple bacon double-cheeseburger with a twice loaded baked potato. And if they don’t have that, get me something healthy. Just make sure it’s saturated in fat.”

My uncle is suffering for his eating habits and I support him by making sure animal fat permanently seals off my arteries. And I noticed the women in my family were kind of sneaky with their orders, “I’ll just have a small garden salad.” And then in a hushed whisper they say, “With fried chicken strips and four ranch dressings and a double order of croutons.” And then they announce for the whole waiting room to hear, “And put the dressing on the side.”

We have a family member lying on an operating table, paying for years of bad eating habits, and we pretend we’re ordering dinner from Emeril. And the weird thing was, right after we got our food, we received word that things had turned serious. One of the doctors came out and told us, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but there’s no marinara with the cheese sticks. And I had plainly ordered marinara.”

Actually, things really did turn sort of serious as the doctor’s kind of botched the surgery, and my uncle had had to stay in intensive care all night. So we all spent the night and then the next morning a cousin got us all together and said, “Folks, we need to look in the mirror because this is a wake-up call.” And we all agreed that is was. And then he said, “Now does anybody care if I have that last doughnut?” And before anyone could say anything, the most Christian one of us out of the bunch decided we should save it for our uncle when they let him out of the hospital. And we all agree to that too, mainly because it was a raspberry-filled doughnut and most folks really don’t like those.

But this whole letting your body go and then doing something radical to fix it, kind of made me search the Scriptures to find out if there was anything about controlling your appetite. I came up with a few verses, but the one that really hit me was First Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Wow. That verse nails it. So my take away lesson is there will be no need for office supply surgery if I memorize this scripture. However, the next time I’m faced with a dozen hot glazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts in my Sunday school class, I’ll have to actually apply this verse. I’ll let you know how it turns out.