Pray Your Fat Away

I have some good news for you fine people struggling with some extra weight! Forget all the exercise and healthy eating you have been doing or are resolving to do! It’s not necessary!  Just pray that fat away!

I got on Facebook recently and the following message is what I see on a pastor’s newsfeed from a church I used to go to when I lived in a different town… he is still my parent’s pastor.

Let me let you all read it and then we can talk about it. (I did change the name of his wife, just because…)

 About 5 p.m. tonight I am waiting for Susan to get off work so we can go eat Chinese before I go to Cell Church. I parked my car directly facing a CiCi’s pizza joint. I roll down my windows and begin waiting for Susan to arrive.

Then, 3 young adults (2 males and a female) walk out of a nearby gym. I spot them in my mirror walking near my car. I am thinking they are going to walk by me and go to CiCi’s… But, instead they stop by my rolled down window and tap me gently on my shoulder to draw my attention. Then the leader of the 3 says something like..”excuse me but GOD sent us to you today. Do you believe in God?”

I am thinking to myself… I want to see where this leads and start getting ready for a theological chat. I answered that I do believe in God.

He then says, “Good, I’m so glad to hear that. Did you know the bible teaches that your body is the temple of God?”. The young lady with them opens a bible and reads the verse .

I am still interested in where they are leading with their boldness. Then I find out.

The young man says something like, “God sent us to you today to tell you that being obese (nice word for FAT) is a sin. But we have good news for you. You can be healed of this sin. There is power in the name of Jesus ….”

The young man begins to pray and the only part of his prayer which remains in my remembrance is “in the power and name of Jesus, you are released from the prison of FATNESS”.

Then they give me a pamphlet entitled PRAYING THE FAT AWAY. No I am not making this up.

How the encounter ends will remain a mystery that only Susan and I can tell, but won’t.

Since my revelation that I am fat and being granted a prayer of redemption from this bible pounding punk, I have eaten Chinese, Mexican steak, and buttered popcorn. But don’t worry about my added calories because I will be PRAYING THE FAT AWAY! YO BUDDY!

Seriously… That just happened!?

I wish I was making this story up, but I’m not. I don’t even think I can be that creative!

It is amazing to me that there are people that are so rude as to go up to someone they view as overweight and tell the person he/she can pray away their fat!

Besides it being an extremely rude way to try to reach out to someone… it’s just plain false! These 3 people clearly don’t even believe what they are preaching! Did you notice where they just came from?

They just walked out of the gym!! So, unless they were just preaching to the people in the gym that are trying to do something active to take care of their bodies, then they are working out! Although, I’m not sure why they would do that, when they could just pray their way to a healthy body!

Ridiculousness… that’s what I have to say about all this. I think if I sat and prayed for God to take away my fat, He would likely be getting a bit frustrated with me for taking the lazy way out.

Let’s also talk about the fact that in order to seek him out as a fat person, they had to label him… they had to judge him. Pretty sure it is also in the Bible that we should not judge.

As good as their intentions were to ‘help’ him by letting him know he could pray away his fat… thus, releasing him “from the prison of FATNESS”… I can’t help but wonder if they would have approached him had they known him a little better.

This “fat” man puts his life in danger on a weekly basis so that he can minister in one of the most dangerous parts of Chattanooga, TN. He has been beat up and shot at. He leaves his home at all hours of the night in response to someone in need of prayer, or money, or food, or whatever else. Through the love of Jesus and his wonderful way of sharing Jesus’ love, he has saved people in that area from a life of prostitution, drug addiction and the feeling of neglect. He has provided children a safe place where they can learn about Jesus, play basketball, get a warm meal, and most importantly, get LOVE! I could write an entire blog post JUST about the things this man and his ministry team has done for the community.

So, please, before you judge a person by their looks, or their car, or how they talk… think about the fact that you don’t truly know that person. And, remember, we are told not to judge.

Have you ever heard of this movement of praying your fat away?  What are your thoughts?

Image (without words) courtesy of farconville / FreeDigitalPhotos.net