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. It was contagious. It forced its victims into social isolation because they were required to live apart from their communities, 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." A person with leprosy was 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. It was a harsh existence.
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, driven outside the city gates, 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 but 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 cried, felt sorry for each other, cursed and screamed at themselves, each other or at God or a number of other things as they just sat. But, instead of just sitting, they decided to act. They decided to do something. They decided to step out on faith and move. They concluded that 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. 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 (because of the loud noises GOD created) into thinking they were being pursued, which caused the soldiers to just abandon everything --their food, their clothing and their wealth. The Syrian army just fled. (See, 2Kings 7:7) When the Lepers walked into the Syrian camp, there was no one there---only the evidence of the goodness of GOD.
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 have to be taken into consideration for optimal good health.
Prolonged sitting is simply 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, who notes that whether a person exercises or whether he/she is a "couch potato" are 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 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;
- 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, of course, continuing to exercise.
See, "Why Your Desk Job is Slowly Killing You," Maria Masters, Men's Heath.
Exercising at Your Desk/Computer
Just because your job requires that you sit at a desk of computer doesn't mean you can't exercise: Some of the stretching exercise you can do include the following: (a) Reach your hands skyward, then slowly extend the right hand and then the left hand 10 times; then extend your hands east and west doing the same slow hand extensions 10 times; then extend the hands downward along your chair (maintaining your posture and abs) and repeat the same 10 extensions on each side ; (b) Maintaining your posture and abs forward, slowly look up to the ceiling and then look downward 5 times; then look right to left 5 times; then side to side , but do not roll your head around your neck (c) Keeping your lower back in contact with the lower part of your chair, slowly rotate your shoulders forward and then backwards 10 times; (d) Roll your ankles 10 times clockwise and then 10 times counterclockwise; (e) Roll your wrists 10 times clockwise and then 10 times counterclockwise; (f) Sitting up straight flex your feet so your toes point upward toward the ceiling then relax (do this 10 times); then point your toes straight ahead and then relax 10 times- you can also repeat this exercise raising your feet first 6 inches and then 1 foot off the ground. (h) Place your hands on your abdomen then take 3-4 five deep breathes, making your hand slowly move in at the same distance as your hand move out. If any exercise causes pain or discomfort, STOP immediately. Be sure to drink water if you feel thirsty. If you have a medical condition, be sure to consult your personal physician regarding a proper exercise program for your specific condition.
Spiritual Health
Like the four lepers, we have to remind ourselves that even when the situation looks dire, we still have choices. And, just as there are physical things we can do to increase our physical health, there are also spiritual things we can do to increase our spiritual health ---such as attending Bible study, attending Sunday school classes, being active in ministries that help other people, such as those caught in human trafficking, working in children's ministry or volunteering a few hours. We can sit and do nothing (and die) or and take a spiritual "leap of faith," (and live). Who knows what Blessing GOD has arranged!
So, refuse to just sit*; instead, take a stand for greater physical and spiritual health and BE BLESSED!
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*For those of you who can, please join us on Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 1:30 PM (after second service), at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd. Oakland, CA 94621. Dr. Marcus Penn will be conducting a chair yoga class in the FLC gym for "Love Yourself During the Month of February." All February after second service exercise classes are free!
