This week

• Looking to sell your home? Owner financing is a great way to sell faster and make more money … but only if you follow these 4 rules…
• Reverse diabetes in just three weeks. Rhett Bergeron, MD shows you how…
• Wives, does it feel like you do all the work around the house? If so, make sure this isn’t the cause…
• If your children fight all the time, these 4 steps that will teach them to resolve their own conflicts…
• Looking for financial success? There are only two roads that always work. Find out what they are and which one is best for you…
• What you can learn from a frozen explorer. His secret to handling adversity could help you re-evaluate your priorities…
• Fear can cause even the most talented to stumble and fall. Don’t let it keep you from experiencing success. Here’s how…

“The Bible teaches that Christians are totally different from anyone else.” -  
Peter Jeffery, Evangelicals Then and Now (Buy Now)

Dear Wisdom Seeker,

We are excited to announce that Rhett Bergeron, MD has joined our team of experts. Rhett is director of the American Wellness Clinic in Roswell, Georgia. He’s a solid believer, serves as a deacon in his church, and desires to help you be as healthy as possible. He searches out the best possible treatments for even the most stubborn conditions and has seen tremendous results in his clinic. People come from around the country and around the world to visit his clinic. His health wisdom is sure to help you take better care of the body God gave you.

– Steve Kroening

Health

Reverse Many Cases of Type-2 Diabetes in Three Weeks

In my practice, it’s amazing how many diabetics I see. Almost all of them are type-2 diabetics, which means lifestyle choices (poor diet and lack of exercise) probably caused their disease. Right now, there’s a debate over what kind of diet is best for reversing the disease.

Most everyone agrees that sugar needs to be limited. And, as you saw last week in Ian Hodge’s article, diabetics need to carefully manage carbs. But the current debate is over fat and meat. Should you include them in your diet or not?

Most studies now show that limiting fat is a good idea. But conventional diabetes treatment calls for a high protein (largely from meat) diet. However, many feel that you have to eliminate meat altogether. A good, healthy vegetarian diet will definitely lower high blood sugar. But far too many vegetarians simply don’t get enough protein. And most people aren’t willing to give up meat. So what’s the best solution?

A recent study might solve the issue. It shows you can reverse diabetes in as few as three weeks with a low-fat, low-carb diet. The participants did eat meat and still saw fantastic results.

The UCLA study focused on 31 overweight men with type-2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome (which is also known as pre-diabetes, a very common condition). The researchers drastically restricted the fat and sugar of the participants. The diet they gave the participants was largely plant based, but they did allow meat. They also had the men walk on a treadmill for 45-60 minutes each day.

Amazingly, the diet and exercise not only lowered glucose, cholesterol, and blood lipids, they also helped heal the blood vessels damaged by the diabetic condition. That means the lifestyle changes reversed the diabetes and the effects of diabetes.

This is groundbreaking work! It suggests that type-2 diabetics don’t need insulin to solve their problem (after all, insulin won’t reverse blood vessel damage).

And they don’t have to avoid meat. Simply limiting fat and sugar consumption – and getting plenty of exercise – is enough to reverse the condition.

The author of the study agrees. Christian Roberts told the New Scientist, “The effect can be very dramatic given that, of the vast majority of people who go through the program, at least 50% are no longer clinically defined as diabetic after three weeks, which suggests this disease is reversible.” He continues, “The study shows, contrary to common belief, that type-2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome can be reversed solely through lifestyle changes.”

So if you have type-2 diabetes, don’t think you have to “just live with it.” Many of you can actually reverse the condition. There are cases where the vascular damage is so advanced that it’s irreversible. But even in these cases, you can greatly improve your health. It might even get you off your oral diabetic medicine or insulin. Just check your blood sugar. As you notice improved blood sugar control, you can start to decrease your dosages. I’ll have more on diabetes control, including the best meat to eat, in future issues of Wisdom’s Edge.

– Rhett Bergeron, MD

Parenting & Education

Teach Your Children to Solve Their Own Conflicts

Ongoing bickering and fighting among family members is not inevitable. We can use times of quarreling and tears as opportunities to teach our children to resolve conflict. Our job is to teach our children about God and His ways, and to train them in the spirit of reconciliation because we are part of a kingdom based on forgiveness.

When one of our children came to me angry or in tears complaining of some mistreatment by a sibling, I followed a set of steps outlined in Scripture to teach and train toward obedience and reconciliation.

(1) Help the offended child to articulate what happened and express how it made him feel. “Ronnie hut my feelings when he said I look like a goat” or “ It made me angry when Jeri got into my stuff.”

(2) Help them get their emotions under control. Coach them to use a soft voice (Proverbs 15:1) when they tell the offender how the offense made them feel (Matthew 18:15). Remind them that the goal is reconciliation.

(3) Talk with the offender before the offended child comes to confront the situation. Do whatever teaching or coaching is necessary to help them see their offense, the need to say, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me” (Matthew 6:14-15) and seek reconciliation. Often they feel offended in some way as well and need stops 1 and 2.

(4) Have the children talk with each other for the purpose of reconciliation. Monitor the situation. For example, if the offended child shared his hurt and the offending child said, “Tough!” then, more teaching or discipling is needed.

At first, the process is very demanding on the mother, but in time they resolve their conflicts with little coaching.

– Jean Fleming

(Quoted from A Mother’s Heart: A look at values, vision, and character for the Christian mother, by Jean Fleming.)

Success

Only Two Roads for Success

There is something in the way God has made us that keeps us aiming towards success.  Defining success, however, is an individual matter. 

For many people success is measured in tangible terms: The size and quality of the home, the car, the bank account, or the lifestyle.  Others, of course, add in more personal issues.  And as Christians we cannot forget that God wants us to be holy before He wants us to be successful.  Our first success ought to be in godly living, not money and things.

But leaving spiritual success for another discussion, it is curious to see just how many people fail to meet their own standards of success in tangible things.  It is this discontentment that keeps entrepreneurs dreaming and the rest of the population working for them.

It doesn’t matter where you are in the success chain, whether you’re at the top, the bottom, or somewhere in the middle, there are only two roads to success.  And they are these.

Somehow, in order to be successful, you must contribute to someone’s life in some way.  And there are two ways to do this.  Either you contribute to their income in some form, or else you help them lower their costs.  These are your only two choices.

If you are in business, it is easy to identify, but not always so easy to do.  How does the service or product help your customer?  Does it lower their costs, making them more competitive in the marketplace, or does it contribute to their income by helping them improve their sales?

On the personal level, the same criteria apply.  Do you help people with their income or their costs? (Someone might be tempted to put health care into a third category, but in reality, health care is a way of reducing people’s costs, so it still fits under our two categories).

So if you’re wondering why success eludes you, or the level of success you crave eludes you, it might be time to reassess your contribution into the lives of other people.  And if you cannot see how you can improve their income or lower their costs, don’t be surprised if they can’t either, and therefore don’t buy what you’re offering.

– Ian Hodge

Wisdom From History

How God Uses Trials to Help You Re-evaluate Your Priorities

The oil-burning stove that generated just enough heat to keep Richard Byrd alive in the Antarctic was spewing out enough carbon monoxide to kill him.

His head and body were wracked with pain from the poisonous gas. But more dangerous was its pull to slumber.

To survive the winter of '34, the lone explorer needed to continuously judge how much oil to burn to keep warm and how much cold air (80 degrees below zero) to let in to ventilate his hut. A few extra hours of sleep might kill him.

For more than four months, Byrd's biggest challenge was breaking through the CO-induced mental fog to control his senses.

Routine became one of his biggest allies. Even when he couldn't think clearly, it kept his mind focused. Day after day, the American admiral, who was in Antarctica to record data about the winter, conducted frequent checks of temperature, barometric pressure and other measurements.

At the same time, he made sure that his routines didn't become too monotonous.

”I rarely spent more than an hour on any one job, preferring to shift to something else,” Byrd (1888-1957) wrote in Alone, his account of his six months at the bottom of the world in '34….

Time and again, Byrd found that when he felt he couldn't go on, an extra bit of effort led him to untapped sources of strength. He didn't pray formally, because the sheer hunger to live was prayer enough, he wrote. But when his thoughts turned to suicide, he turned to God and faith to sustain him.

Though I am cut off from human beings, I am not alone...

His only contact with the world was a radio to his comrades at the Little America base camp 120 miles away. But despite his difficulties – he wrote that even his eyeballs would freeze if he didn't rub them – he didn't call for help. His concern was that his friends might die trying to rescue him….

Despite Byrd's best efforts, his friend Charlie Murphy at Little America suspected the admiral was seriously ill and began planning a rescue mission. Under the guise of conducting an expedition to observe meteors, he and others set out from their base.

They radioed Byrd they were on their way. Preparing for their arrival bolstered his spirits. For days, he lit flares and gasoline tins as beacons in hopes the crew would find the way to his door.

His trio of rescuers arrived shortly after midnight on Aug. 11, but it wasn't until two months and four days later that Byrd was well enough to travel back to Little America.

I climbed the hatch and never looked back, he wrote of that final day. Part of me remained forever at Latitude 80 (degrees) 08 (minutes) South: what survived of my youth, my vanity ... and my skepticism. On the other hand, I did take away something that I had not fully possessed before: appreciation of the sheer beauty and miracle of being alive, and a humble set of values. I live more simply now, and with more peace.

– Michele Hostetler

(Quoted from “Explorer Richard Byrd,” Investor’s Business Daily, July 31, 1998)

Word for the Wise

The True Reward for Standing Up to Your Fears

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV

Freedom – My friend Steve hit the nail on the head.  "There is a direct correlation between your willingness to face the darkness of your own pain and your ability to live freely and fully."  The opposite of freedom is not captivity.  It is fear.

On Thursdays I spend time with the juvenile inmates at the local county jail.  It's a very large and very depressing place.  Most of us aren't aware of these monuments of fear tucked away in inconspicuous places.  We don't want to think about them.  They scare us.  Inside are thieves, murderers, drug pushers, molesters, con men and a whole host of bad people.  All the things we want to keep away from.   When I talk with these young men, I often tell them that the concrete walls and steel bars are not their prison.  As long as they live in fear, they carry the jail around inside them.  Then I leave.  I walk out through the steel doors and get in my car and drive away.  But I'm not anything more than an inmate without the blue coveralls unless I take care of my own fear.  Unfortunately, most of us are really prisoners without uniforms and we are far worse off than the ones who know they are locked up.

If you won't face your fears, you can't be free.  Freedom isn't purchased by bombs and battles or by votes and victories.  Freedom is purchased by confession.

What makes you afraid? 

I might lose my job.  I could go bankrupt.  My marriage is in trouble.  My children are lost.  My husband is having an affair.  I've been divorced.  I cheated my business partner.  I pretend to be honest.  I'm an alcoholic.  I'm a sex addict.  I'm estranged from my family.  My past is degrading.  I stole from my company.  I was fired for lying. 

Want to add your own items?  Jesus came to set you free.  His intention was to tear down those inside jail cells that we so cleverly camouflage.  You can't be free until you look your fear right in the face and say, "Oh, God.  I'm afraid.  But You came to set me free.  Help me walk right up to my fear and introduce You as my friend and not worry about what will happen next."

– Skip Moen

(Ed. Note: Skip Moen, PhD, is the president of At God’s Table and the author of Words to Lead By.)

 Resources

A Mother’s Heart: A look at values, vision, and character for the Christian mother, by Jean Fleming (BUY NOW)

Alone, by Richard Byrd (BUY NOW)

Evangelicals Then and Now, Peter Jeffery, Evangelical Press (Buy Now)

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