Tuesday is garbage day at our house.

Every Monday evening the garbage can gets wheeled down to the curb and every Tuesday a big truck with a mechanical arm drives by and uses its scary robot appendage to pick the can up and shake it violently over the open bin above.

It drives away with all the rotten food leftovers, chicken parts from last night’s dinner, un-recyclable plastics and other random disposables so it doesn’t hang around and stink up our garage.

Tuesday evening, one of us (usually my husband) will drag the can back up the driveway and return it to its spot, tucked neatly away in the open  garage. 

Today I woke up feeling like that garbage can. For a little over a year my husband and I have followed a Ketogenic way of eating (low carb, high fat). The first six months we were very strict and did not waiver from the foods we were supposed to eat. During the next six months, we would occasionally have a meal that didn’t quite fit the macros if we were traveling. 

The past couple of weeks we have blown the diet out of the water. Last night, we sunk the battleship with dinner out and ice cream for dessert. 

I woke up at 4 am with stomach pain and just an overall feeling of yuck. 

The Keto diet has been life giving. It has made many health issues I was having before disappear. When I’ve had too many carbs or processed foods, symptoms start reappearing until I’m back on a full Keto diet. 

Being on the Keto diet, I have never felt better. I can tell my body has healed from the inside. When I do have a meal that causes me to feel off, it amazes me that for years I lived feeling that way. 

By tomorrow I’ll be back to normal and feeling good again. 

Early this morning, laying wide awake and having carb regret, I used the time to talk to God. 

He reminded me of what the Word does for us spiritually and what feeding ourselves “garbage” can do to us spiritually. 

There are so many things in this world that bombard us daily in the form of advertising. Everywhere we look – television, social media, other people’s conversations – we are inundated with ungodly thoughts and ideas. We are like a garbage can that needs to be emptied at least once a week or we will stink. 

Why let it even sit there for a week though? We have access to the Word and it instructs us to renew our minds. 

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:2 KJV

We spend more time on social media than we do in the Word. We have the opportunity to read the Word daily, but do we? 

Many of us will make sure to get our exercise in every morning or every evening to keep our physical bodies in good shape and working properly but do we give that much attention to our spiritual life?  

What are we renewing our mind with? The Word or the world? 

God reminded me this morning that spiritually we can feel yucky when we are feeding ourselves with the wrong spiritual food. 

What have you been feeding on and what have you thrown away? Is it time to empty the garbage can? 

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God‘s.

1 Corinthians 6:19‭-‬20 KJV