HEALTH AND NUTRITION
5 MINUTES WITH GOD
5 MINUTES WITH GOD
DRAMA
Theme: Does God desire for us to be healthy and physically fit?
Description: When we open the scriptures to read God’s Holy Word and we come to 1 Corinthians 6:19, we are asked a question; and then given a very interesting fact; “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of The Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”
If we belong to God and our bodies are not our own (but they are houses for God’s Holy Spirit) how then should we be treating our physical bodies? Our story today will deal with part of the answer to this question which is often asked by those seeking to further understand God’s will for their daily lives.
Purpose:
(1) To emphasize that God has given us good instructions in the bible for living a healthy life.
(2) To encourage people to realize and respect the fact that God’s people’s bodies have become His modern-day temple.
(3) To help others to see the practical benefits of following God’s dietary laws.
CHRIST TO THE WORLD MINISTRIES
Writer: Sheila Gail Landgraf Christ to the World Ministries
Editor: Dr. Art Criscoe Copyright © 2015
DIRECTORIAL INFORMATION
CAST OF CHARACTERS: (note voice quality required)
· Each voice should be recognizably different than any other character.
HOST: Voice of a mature man.
MOTHER: Voice of a thirty two year old woman.
WILLIAM: Voice of a ten year old boy
Notes to translators:
· Use names that are culturally appropriate.
· When Scripture is used, the print is in italics, and it is the NIV (1984). Scripture references are given to aid the translators and should not be read as part of the script.
Director’s notes to readers:
· These are audio dramas. The actions and emotions are in the words. Remember that the listener will only hear these words once. Speak distinctly with appropriate emotion. Carefully observe all punctuation (i.e., pause at commas, stop at periods, intensify at exclamation points, and give special emphasis to words in bold type.)
5 MINUTES WITH GOD
HEALTH AND FITNESS
(Music: Theme Music gradually fades to underscoring as host begins to speak.)
HOST: Welcome to 5 Minutes with God, brought to you by Christ to the World Ministries.
Long before Jesus came to walk this earth within a physical body just like ours; God was already teaching His people about the very best ways to live. On one of the annual festival days that has now come to be called Pentecost; God descended upon the mountain and spoke with Moses face-to-face about things relating to this very subject.
Moses and God spoke for many days up on the mountain. After God gave Moses the Ten Commandments; He also gave Moses further instructions to use for educating the people in the very best ways to live. Part of those instructions became known as the dietary laws. They are written down in the book of the Holy Scriptures we call Leviticus. God’s people passed these instructions down from generation to generation and everyone who kept them faithfully honored God.
It seems that these same dietary laws are also very important today; at least to the typical modern housewife and mother we meet in today’s story. She has been faithfully honoring God by teaching all of God’s stories to her son. Hopefully, he will grow up to pass them on to his children. So let’s start this story out right:
Once upon a time there lived a ten year old boy named William who detested eating carrots; or any other vegetable for that matter.
MOTHER: William you can’t leave the table until you finish eating your vegetables!
WILLIAM: Awwww Mom! I hate vegetables, especially carrots! There is just nothing good about carrots, and I don’t see why I have to always be eating them.
MOTHER: Carrots help your eyes to see. Well, that is funny! Obviously you are not seeing EVERYTHING there is to see here. I suppose you have never heard about what happened to Daniel? If you had; you would not be making such a silly statement.
WILLIAM: Daniel? Who is Daniel?
MOTHER: Daniel was a young man living in Jerusalem who got captured by The King of Babylon. He was forced to grow up inside a prison far from his home and separated from his parents. He was one of many of God’s people brought over from Jerusalem and held captive in that far away land.
WILLIAM: Oh, that must have been terrible for him!
MOTHER: Well, it didn’t STAY terrible. God was looking after Daniel. The king decided to make use of the young captives for service in his royal courts. He appointed one of his top officials to pick out the best, most intelligent and most handsome young Hebrew captives and groom them for service in the palace. Those who got picked were able to leave the prison, go to school under some of the top educators in the land. They were also taught to speak the language of Babylon. When they were well trained and ready, the King intended to pick the best-of-the-best for service in his royal palace.
Life in the palace would have been highly preferred over life in prison. Those men chosen would even get to eat from the King’s table every day. They would have all that they wanted, and have it any time that they desired to eat. The palace was always full of trays and trays of tasty goodies to nibble on in between meals; and three times a day a major feast was served with rich foods and lots of wine and many sugary flavored specially concocted drinks. There were lots and lots of sweet decadent desserts at the end of every course.
WILLIAM: Alright! Now that is what should be happening to me! I would never eat vegetables again! Every meal would be chocolate cake and ice cream.
MOTHER: Well, not Daniel! He had been raised on God’s dietary laws for young Hebrews. He did not wish to eat in that way!
WILLIAM: Mom, I’ve never heard of God’s dietary laws. I didn’t know God gave laws about what we should eat and drink. Did God choose ice cream and cake too?
MOTHER: (Laughing) No! He chose all the things that I’m always teaching you to eat; like broccoli, celery, spinach, asparagus, beans, avocados, all kinds of lettuce and cabbage, almost everything green and then some squash, onions, garlic, tomatoes and many spices and lots and lots of carrots! He recommends that we drink mostly clean pure water and lots of it. There was no mention of chocolate cake and ice cream in the Hebrew’s diet plan, nor were there any cokes or soft-drinks allowed, especially not diet cokes, nor any of the other sweet sugary drinks you sometimes ask for.
WILLIAM: Mom, I think you are just making this up to get me to eat my carrots…..aren’t you?
MOTHER: Absolutely not William! I would not do that. What I am telling you about Daniel and the way God requested that the Hebrew people eat is absolutely true. I promise. It all really happened a long, long time ago. Now, eat some of those carrots!
WILLIAM: Okay, but I’ll bet Daniel didn’t eat carrots!
MOTHER: Well if you listen to the rest of the story you will find out that Daniel requested just fruit, vegetables (which would include carrots) and water for his diet. He did not want to eat all the other junk that was being served at the King’s table which the others were quickly gobbling down.
WILLIAM: Really? How dumb! Daniel must have been crazy.
MOTHER: Actually, Daniel was very, very smart, William. You could say he was one of the smartest men that ever lived. When the King’s official picked Daniel and several of his closest Hebrew buddies to go to school and learn how to run the palace; the thing that the official noticed about Daniel that stood out above the others was how very smart he was, and how eager to learn he was. The official just could not understand why he kept insisting on eating only fruits and vegetables and drinking only water; but everything else about Daniel seemed to be exceptional. The King’s Official favored Daniel because he liked him so much; and he found himself listening to what Daniel had to say. After awhile the official tried to reason with Daniel.
The King’s Official told Daniel, if he did not learn to eat the food from the pagan king’s table, he would never grow to be strong and healthy like the other men who had been chosen. Daniel strongly disagreed with him, but instead of arguing with the king’s official, Daniel decided to persuade him another way. Daniel convinced him to run a test.
WILLIAM: A test?
MOTHER: Yes. Daniel asked the official to allow him and some of his friends to eat only fruit and vegetables and drink only water for the next ten days. Then he asked the official to compare their health to the health of the others who were eating and drinking as the King and his court.
WILLIAM: Wow, I guess Daniel WAS pretty smart. He figured out how to get his way when it didn’t seem to be possible; but I still don’t understand why he insisted on eating only fruits and vegetables and drinking only water. Did God really tell the people to eat this way?
MOTHER: William, God really gave His people dietary laws. God wasn’t just trying to rule over them with a bunch of unnecessary rules; He was just loving them, the same as any good Father would do, by teaching them the best ways to live. You know; all of the ten commandments actually do affect your health in some direct or indirect way; and there were many other instructions that God gave to Moses on that mountain which pertain to how we should be eating for good health.
Someone; probably Daniel’s dear old Mother, had taught and trained Daniel well! By keeping God’s dietary rules, Daniel was also honoring that commandment to honor his father and mother. He was remembering the things that they had taught him about living God’s way, even though they were not physically there to remind him and to reinforce that he follow God’s ways. Keeping all of these things in mind, Daniel was very wise to resist the temptations to eat the pagan king’s delicacies.
WILLIAM: Mom, I want to know how the end of the story turned out. What finally happened with Daniel?
MOTHER: Well, the king’s official agreed to let Daniel and his friends perform the test. All of the other men were fed from the King’s table and Daniel and his friends were given only fresh vegetables and fruit with pure clean water. That was all they ate or drank for 10 days. For Daniel and his friends it was just a healthy and normal way to live, but for us living in the modern world today, eating that way would amount to a complete body detox. That is because in our modern day diets we eat so many things that are unhealthy and loaded with chemicals and sugar and unnatural food products. Nothing is served simply the way God made it. So, when we eat the way that Daniel and his friends did; our bodies get cleansed of all these unnatural toxins and our cells get renewed and become healthier, especially if we follow this plan for up to 10 days at a time. William, you probably won’t hear about any of this on the local news or even read about it if you look up “diets” on the internet. It isn’t any more popular today than it was in the days of Daniel. Still, this is a plan that comes directly from God, one that His faithful people had learned to use to their benefit for good nutrition and health for a long time.
WILLIAM: So; I guess the test worked in Daniel’s favor?
MOTHER: Oh, yes William! Any time you do what God has recommended instead of following the crowd, it usually works in your favor! Remember that! At the end of the testing, the official of the king was shocked to learn that Daniel and his friends were a whole lot healthier and stronger than all of the other men who had been eating from the pagan king’s table.
By eating from GOD’S TABLE of natural foods, Daniel and his friends had managed to keep their bodies healthier. They had many more nutrients in their systems that were busy replenishing their cells every day. By not snacking on the sugary sweets they had kept harmful chemicals out of their bodies, and they had remained disease free. By limiting their food intake to three meals a day of only fruits, vegetables and pure water, they had improved the health of their bones and muscles much more than the men who had been eating the other food. Those men had become chubby and lazy while Daniel and his friends had maintained high energy levels and stronger muscles with greater strength and they had a better mental attitude to boot.
It was finally decided that Daniel and his friends could continue their food preferences throughout the rest of the program. When it was all over; Daniel and his friends excelled far above all the other men. The time came for the King to inspect all the men and chose who would get the top positions in the royal palace. Daniel and his three friends were picked first and given the top positions! You know William; I tend to think it was ALL because their parents had listened to God and taught them how to eat for good health! Now; eat your carrots!
WILLIAM: (Laughing) Okay Mom, okay. I think I want a little more spinach too. I’m going to give this “Daniel thing” a try! I’ll make my own test.
MOTHER: Would you mind if we prayed about that right now?
WILLIAM: I think that might be the best way to start this test!
MOTHER: Dear God, please guide William as he learns your best ways to live. Teach him, as you taught Daniel; just what it takes to live a good, long, wise and godly life. I thank You God for the blessing of my precious son! Amen.
HOST: William’s Mom smiled and dipped more spinach onto his plate. It was the last time she ever had to remind him to eat his carrots. William read that story about Daniel as well as the many other stories about Daniel that were written down in his bible. He also read about God’s dietary laws for the Hebrew people and eventually he incorporated them into his own daily life. William grew into a fine young man and went on to serve, not in a palace, but in an important high government office. Like Daniel, he developed great and wonderful friends from all parts of the world. He loved each of them, listened to their stories and shared their ideas. He was picked to be one of the land’s highest officials because of his great wisdom. William lived a very long and healthy life because he continued to maintain good health by paying attention to God’s dietary laws.
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