Do you eat like a horse?

Not long ago a careless ranch hand did not secure a gate and all of my horses got out. The dominant horse went directly to a wildlife feeder and gorged on corn until he could eat no more. The next day the horses were rounded up and put back in their pasture, but the horse that ate the corn, almost immediately came down with a condition known as “founder”.

Several internal events occur when a horse founders, but the bottom line is that the ill effects of overeating basically go directly to a horse’s hooves and the painful effect of it makes the horse go lame and often means the horse will have to be euthanized. Fortunately this dominant gelding glutton did not allow any of the other horses to eat the corn and he is the only one that was affected. The horse that overate will likely never fully recover and it remains to be seen if I will have to euthanize him.

I did not know that horses would gorge themselves literally to death, but they do. Apparently they do not stop eating when full. They just keep eating and eating and eating. When they overeat they develop and often die from complications caused by colic or they founder and go lame and have to be put down. I read that obese horses that live sedentary lifestyles are more susceptible to founder than those that are in good shape.

Hmmm Does this sound familiar? Gorging one’s self to a point of ruining one’s health is a common occurrence for humans too, particularly in the United States. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart ailments are our founder and colic. Overweight people who live sedentary lifestyles devoid of exercise are more susceptible to these conditions just like horses.

If horses are properly fed and exercised regularly they will not suffer these maladies and the same applies to humans. It is easier to care for horses than humans, because we can lock horses up away from food and limit them to reasonable portions and we can ride them and exercise them routinely. Humans are much more difficult. Some humans can and will devour everything in sight and when they are not eating, spend the rest of the time parked on a couch watching TV, or in a chair staring at a computer monitor, or reading. No one can stop them and that is why obesity is an epidemic in this country.

Our bodies are magnificent creations and God tells us that they are God’s temple and He resides in them in the form of the Holy Spirit. How is your temple looking these days? Are you gorging like my old gelding? Do you ever exercise? If you have “porked up” and continue to stuff yourself silly at every opportunity and eat like a horse and do not exercise, you can look forward to an unhealthy life filled with complications that in the end can and likely will take your life.

Eat right and exercise. It sounds so simple and yet like a “gigantic” herd of horses, billions of people all over the world cannot seem to muster the self discipline to do it. I believe with all of my heart that prayer to God to give you strength to overcome addictions works. I saw it in my own life when I overcame alcoholism, drug addiction and nicotine addiction. God can give you the self discipline to overcome *any* addiction including overeating. Get down on your knees and ask for it daily and see if it will not work for you as it has for me and millions of others all over the world. Take God at His word and ask for the strength to overcome.

I was thinking about this situation this morning and turned to one of my favorite books of the Bible Proverbs and ran across a verse that seems very applicable to this gluttonous situation here in the United States; (no letters please, I know that it is taken out of context).

Proverbs 13:3
He who guards his mouth
preserves his life,
But he who opens wide his lips
shall have destruction.