So, I had these great plans to start a new weight loss effort at the beginning of 2014. It lasted, as most resolutions do, about three minutes. Actually, probably about three weeks into it I had mostly slipped back to my old habits. I did lose about seven pounds
in that time, but the busyness of life and the stress of work got to me and I slid back…
There is something that happens to me when I’m not actively following a healthy eating and exercise plan. I have these constant feeling of wanting to escape. I feel this intense burden and pressure and I want to get away from it. It’s like I want to find a place to hide from my sin. Of course, that is impossible, but that is what I feel like pretty much all the time. It’s not pleasant.
Fast forward a few more weeks and even more stress at work and I had this realization – I had actually thought about this before, but this time, it really hit home. I realized that I was 37 years old. 37! I’m three years away from 40. In other words, I’m NOT getting any younger. This food stronghold I have is never going to suddenly get easy for me to deal with. I’m never going to wake up one morning and have the ability to not be tempted by food any longer. I’m never going to supernaturally get the strength to let go of this stronghold to the point where I’m never going to be tempted or have an issue with it again. It’s always going to be there. And I’m not getting any younger. That is a sobering assessment.
Our church small group is currently studying Francis Chan’s book “Forgotten God” about the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it. Francis is a great writer, very relatable and you feel like he’s talking right to you. It’s a great book about how the Church seems to oftentimes overlook the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Pretty powerful stuff. Our group is studying chapter six this week and there is a paragraph that really jumped out at me.
“Because the fact is that if you were in step with the Holy Spirit, listening to and obeying Him, you wouldn’t sin (Gal 5:16). In any given moment, it is impossible to live in the power of the Spirit and sin at the same time. Sin is wholly opposed to everything that is of the Spirit. They really are mutually exclusive and totally contrary to each other.” (Forgotten God, Francis Chan, Chapter 6)
WOW and I’ll say it again, Wow!! I really felt strongly that, generally speaking, I was following in step with the Holy Spirit in my life. I started each morning with prayer and a short quiet time. I walked in obedience whenever I felt God’s promptings, I actively participated in a small group with other believers, I attended church weekly, I volunteered at my church… But when I read this paragraph, I realized that any time I made a choice to overeat or eat food that wasn’t good for me or eat when I wasn’t hungry, I was NOT in step with the Holy Spirit. Humbling! Hard to hear!
The thing is, I am very much in love with Jesus. He is my Savior and my Friend. I pray several times throughout the day – I love having relationship and conversations with God. I love walking with the Spirit. Realizing that each time I chose to sin with food, I was not only sinning, but I was not walking with the Spirit and instead was walking in my sinful flesh…well, it was enough to get my attention. Also, realizing that each time I chose to sin with food that I was grieving the Spirit…the very Spirit that has given me life, saved me from death, directs my life, listens to my prayers and loves me… That was enough to do some changing.
When I read that paragraph, I knew I had to take action. That was three days ago, in my morning quiet time. In my prayer time following the reading of that passage, I told God I was recommitting to my healthy lifestyle plan again. I prayed about my concerns with God and I asked Him that the moment I make this process about anything other than about being obedient to Him, to convict me of it immediately so I could confess it as sin and turn from that behavior.
Well, I’m now three days into it and it is going great! I feel this huge burden off my shoulders. In fact, when I was praying about committing to following in obedience, I immediately started to feel the burden lift. It was really quite amazing.
I want to tell you about something cool that happened this morning during my quiet time… I was thanking God for helping me through the first two days of walking in obedience with food and the thought popped in my head “You’re walking in freedom…” Now, there are so many times on this journey that I have wanted to walk in freedom from these eating issues. In fact, I used to think that once I got to my goal weight that I would then need to learn how to walk in freedom from this issue.
What I realized this morning was, even though it was only two days so far, I was already walking in freedom!
I didn’t have to wait until everything was perfect to walk in freedom!
I didn’t need to wait until I had reached my goal weight to walk in freedom!
I didn’t need to wait until I was eating a perfectly organic diet and had ten servings of fruits and vegetables a day and was running marathons to walk in freedom!
Small steps in obedience of eating for energy and sustenance and not to fill a void and not to relax and not to deal with stress and emotions I don’t feel equipped to handle…that was enough to walk in freedom. You see, God doesn’t worry as much about tomorrow or perfection or our ideal weight as we do. He is concerned with right now. The decisions we’re making right now. He sees the obedience and the sacrifice we’re making today and that is what He cares about. If we make the right choice, He sees that and THAT is walking in freedom!
I saw a saying on Facebook a while back and it is so fitting for my journey with these eating issues “God meets daily needs. Not weekly or annually. He will give you what you need when it is needed” –Max Lucado This is so true. I always want God to just take this from me or give me strength to stand up under temptation for the indefinite future. Instead, He gives me just what I need, right when I need it so that I don’t rely on my own strength.
It’s only been three days, but that is enough to say I’m walking in freedom! Amazing. God is good!