2 Kings 7:3-8 Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. “Why sit here until we die” they asked each other. “We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better, but if they kill us, we would have died anyway.” So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there.
For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the sounds of a great army approaching.…So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else. When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it. [Living Bible translation]
Summary:
In Biblical times leprosy was a terrible thing. It was incurable. And, it was contagious. It forced its victims into social isolation, far outside the city gates. Lepers were not allowed to attend “church.” The religious leaders wanted nothing to do with them because they were considered ritually “unclean.” In fact, persons with leprosy were required to yell out “unclean, unclean” wherever they went, so that others could avoid contact with them. Lepers often had to rely on the charity of others for food and water.
In 2 Kings, four lepers, who had banded together outside the gates of their city, found themselves in what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Not only were they lepers with a dreaded disease but their city was in the midst of a famine. Moreover, an enemy army, the Syrians, was camped nearby. As the men sat, they considered their alternatives. However, each one seemed to lead to death. They reasoned that if they went into the city, which they were forbidden to enter, they would die from the famine like the other city inhabitants. If they stayed where they were, sitting by the gate, they would also starve to death. If they went and surrendered to the Syrian army, they could be killed.
The men could have contemplated their situation forever. They could have done nothing and just continued to sit and wait. They could have just “given up” and waited for death. They could have cried, felt sorry for each other, cursed, screamed at each other or complained about “their lot in life” and numerous other things as they just sat. But, instead of just sitting, they decided to act. They decided to take a walk over to the enemies’ camp. They decided to step out on faith. They concluded that even walking into the enemies’ camp would be better than just sitting, because just sitting and doing nothing was certain death. So, the lepers got up and got moving.
When they started moving they discovered that GOD had not forgotten them and that just as HE promised in Psalm 23:5—GOD “prepared a table before [them] in the presence of [their] enemies.”
GOD frightened the Syrian soldiers into thinking they were being pursued. When the soldiers panicked, they abandon everything --their food, their clothing and their wealth. The Syrian army heard all the noise that GOD created and just fled. When the Lepers walked into the Syrian camp, there was no one there---only evidence of the goodness of GOD. By just walking and stepping out on faith, the lepers discovered GOD’s blessing.
Sitting and Doing Nothing is Not Healthy
Although people tend to think that exercise is enough, it turns out that exercise and sitting are entirely separate factors and that each one should to be taken into consideration separately for good health. For example, walking has generally been found to be good for all ages. According to Dr. James Levine:
"Getting out there and taking a walk is what it's all about," says James Levine, M.D., Ph.D., and a Mayo Clinic expert on obesity. "You don't have to join a gym; you don't have to check your pulse. You just have to switch off the TV, get off the sofa and go for a walk."
See, “When It Comes To Walking, It’s All Good, Mayo Clinic Research,” at www.mayoclinic.com.
On the other hand, prolonged sitting is generally not good for a healthy lifestyle:
"Sitting is bad for cholesterol, it's bad for your back and muscles," Dr. Levine says. "It's such a terrible thing for our bodies to do and the less of it you do, the better.
Id. In an article entitled, “Why Your Desk Job is Slowly Killing You,” Maria Masters, Men’s Health, quotes Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., a physiologist and professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, notes that whether a person exercises or whether he/she is a “couch potato” may be two separate things. According to Masters:
Hamilton's take, which is supported by a growing body of research, is that the amount of time you exercise and the amount of time you spend on your butt are completely separate factors for heart-disease risk. New evidence suggests, in fact, that the more hours a day you sit, the greater your likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise or how lean you are. That's right: Even a sculpted six-pack can't protect you from your chair.
But it's not just your heart that's at risk from too much sitting; your hips, spine, and shoulders could also suffer. In fact, it's not a leap to say that a chair-potato lifestyle can ruin you from head to toe.
[Emphasis added.] “Why Your Desk Job is Slowly Killing You,” Maria Masters, Men’s Heath. Masters further notes that:
- A 2010 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that when healthy men limited their number of footsteps by 85 percent for 2 weeks, they experienced a 17 percent decrease in insulin sensitivity, raising their diabetes risk;
- According to Peter Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., Hamiliton’s colleague at Pennington, the nation’s leading obesity research center, a person can hit the gym every day, but if he’s sitting a good deal of the rest of the time, he’s probably not leading an overall active life.
- A “standing” worker—say, a sales clerk at a Banana Republic store---burns about 1,500 calories while on the job and a person behind a desk might expend roughly 1000 calories. That goes a long way in explaining why people gain 16 pounds, on average, within 8 months of starting sedentary office work, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington;
- In 2009, Katzmarzyk studies the lifestyle habits of more than 17,000 men and women and found that the people who sat for almost the entire day were 54 percent more likely to end up clutching their chests than those who sat almost none of the time. “The evidence that sitting is associated with heart disease is very strong.”
- “Humans sit too much, so you have to treat the problem specifically,” says Hamilton. “The cure for too much sitting isn’t more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effects of hours and hours of chair time.”
- “Your body adapts to what you do most often.” says Bill Hartman, PT, C.S.C.S., a Men’s Health advisor. “So if you sit in a chair all day, you’ll essentially become better adapted to sitting in a chair.” “Older folks have a harder time moving around than younger people do,” says Hartman. “That’s not simply because of age; it’s because what you do consistently from day to day manifests itself over time, for both good and bad.” If you sit all day at a desk, you’re courting muscle stiffness, poor balance and mobility, lower-back, neck and hip pain.”
- Hamilton suggests standing more rather than sitting, and
- Continue to exercise.
See, “Why Your Desk Job is Slowly Killing You,” Maria Masters, Men’s Heath.
One Mayo Clinic researcher has called sitting, “the New Smoking,” suggesting that sitting like smoking is that harmful to your health.
Spiritually Moving Forward
Like the four lepers, we have to remind ourselves that sitting around and doing nothing, whining, being anxious, worrying or waiting for someone else to solve our problems is simply not consistent with faith or good spiritual health.
Just as there are physical things we can do to increase our physical health –such as taking calls standing up, stretching after an hour behind a desk, a car or a computer or watching less TV---there are also spiritual things we can do to increase our spiritual health ---such as attending Bible study, attending Sunday school classes and being active in ministries that help other people. We can either sit and do nothing (and die) or and take a spiritual “leap of faith,” (and do something) and live life more abundantly. Like the lepers, we have to make choices.
Today, let us all determine to STAND UP for greater physical and spiritual health. Pray for the courage, the wisdom and determination to STEP OUT ON FAITH, and do something or do more.
If you have heard this message before, remember, some things are worth repeating. Some things are worth reconsidering, especially when they involve life and death.
So, STAND UP! PRAY, have FAITH, and “WALK” into your blessing!
