Milk and Honey

If you think about it, the only reason we need food, is because God created us that way. He made the heavens and the Earth, He did not have to make us dependent on food for survival. And let's be honest, food is not about survival in everyday life. If we haven't eaten in four hours we may say, "I am starving to death," but this is obviously not true. Food is about so much more than survival, and I believe God wants it to be more than that. I think he wants us to enjoy food. But he also wants it to remind us that we are fragile and dependent on Him. (See previous blog post He>i for more on that.)

Exodus 3:7-8 The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.."

The promise land, over and over in the Bible, is described as a land FLOWING with milk and honey. That's good food. That's dessert, extra. It is not survival food, it is luxury food.

We are His children and He wants us to have joy in life. Not joy from food, joy from Him. He has given us good gifts, most of all His salvation through grace alone. So why do we lose control to food? (Of course it could be so many different things besides food for different people.)

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Do you think that means He wants us to sit on our couch and eat bon bons all day? Well, I wouldn't call that abundant life. I would call that a way Satan is trying to steal someone's abundant life. In the Bible we are called to action, called to work, called to serve, called to love. But we are also called to share the joy of the Christian life with others in fellowship. And when any good gift he has given us gets used outside of the way it is supposed to, we can become a slave to it. He rescued the Israelites from slavery and desired to bring them to a land of milk and honey. But it is easy to slip back into slavery. We are saved by grace yet, we are drawn to things that can enslave us again.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

The solution? Here it is:

Galations 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

This takes hard work. It takes prayer. It takes renewing of your mind in the way you see food. But God will do a work in you, he will transform you and your mind. This does not happen over night. He wants to teach you something.

I have had the kind of change in my life that came from God miraculously rescuing me from sin with alcohol and cigarettes. I have also now delt with these food and eating issues for many, many years. For a long time I couldn't understand why God couldn't just take the problem away, like he did with alcohol and cigarettes. But I know now, He has many ways of working in us. God has taught me so much and grown me in so many ways as I have failed again and again. I continue to go to Him in my weakness and over and over, He is my strength.

Reaching the Bucket

At Wildwood we had a day where we did something called group initiative. It is a challenge you have to work on as a group. In the first challenge we had to get the whole group from one platform to another swinging across on a rope. If anyone touched the ground everyone had to start over. We worked on this for a few hours before we finally got everyone across. About 15 of us. We all felt very proud and accomplished and we thought we were done.

Our leaders then told us we had another GI to work on. This one was much less physical. Starting from one of those platforms we had to use bricks to walk on to get to a tree to get a bucket that was tied to the tree. If a brick touched the ground with no one touching it, we lost the brick. So basically one person would stand on a brick. Then put another brick down and have one foot on each. Then someone else would put one foot on one and the other person could take their foot off, making a path towards the tree. Every time someone messed up and touched the ground, or moved before a new person put their foot on the brick, we had to start over. We continued to lose bricks and had less and less. Finally we made it to the tree. We thought we were done and then realized there was a lock attached to the bucket. We had to find a key to open the lock. It turns out the key was in the opposite direction than we had just come from.

We made our way back with more mistakes and finally got the key. We then had to again make our way towards the tree. The second time was so much harder. We had less bricks. We were tired. We were frustrated. We had to start over again and again and again after we had the key. It seemed like it would never end. But we finally got there. We finally unlocked the lock and got the bucket which was our goal.

I hope I explained this well enough so you could understand what we were doing. There were times of extreme frustration. There were times when we did not think we would make it. Over and over we had to go back to the platform. That was one thing that never changed. The platform was always there and we always had each other.

Later that night, I couldn't believe the similarities between this group initiative and my weight loss and food issues struggle. Try and failing, trying and failing. Starting over again. Thinking I would never succeed but still trying. Thinking it wasn't even possible. Getting to where I thought I needed to be, only to realize I was missing the key. Trying and failing, starting over, but finally, now, I have the key, I have the bucket (metaphorically speaking) and I have finished.

Two more things: in the initiative, the platform was always there. The platform is like God. He does not change and is always there during our struggle. We can always go to Him. The second is, this was something that could not have been done alone. It couldn't have been done even with just me and God. I had to depend on others just like I have needed to while figuring out my food issues.
No matter where you are on your journey. Remember to depend on others, remember to depend on God. Realize that trying and failing just means you need to try again. Success is possible. There is a finish line.

What comes with freedom?

In the very beginning after God created the Heavens and the Earth. After God created man he put him in the Garden of Eden. He then gave Adam his first command:

Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Well, we know what happened after that. Mankind experienced spiritual death and separation from God because of original sin. I wonder how many wonderful things there were in the garden, and still Adam and Eve wanted more.

How about us? Why do we think we need more? If we had control over ourselves, we could eat freely. We would enjoy food but not suffer consequences. God desires for us to be free. But even in the garden with freedom, Adam and Eve were created to live in obedience. He put the tree there and commanded that they do not eat from it.

God desires to give us all we need. He made the Earth full of good things for us to enjoy. We need to train ourselves to be satisfied in Him. To live in obedience and have control. We can not do this on our own strength, we must depend on Him.

HE>i

I have always known some of my struggle is a pride issue. There was a point when I realized I was either obsessing about how I was going to try to lose weight, or obsessing over my calories and exercise. I thought about these things constantly. All of my worth and self-confidence was wrapped up in my weight. So even when I was feeling bad about myself it was pride. I was so focused on me and what people would think of me when my focus should be on God.

One day while running, I had a realization. I was thinking about calories and food and if I did such and such I might have 5 pounds off by next whenever. Suddenly I had the thought, I could be covered in scars or burns or be crippled, and there would be nothing I could do about it. I would just have to accept who I was. I could have a bad injury and not be able to run, or exercise. Why was I obsessing about something that shouldn't be that big of a deal. It is fixable.

I overcame a lot just with that realization which was over a year ago. And now, well recently I went to a wedding feeling like I looked pretty dang good. I bought a new dress which was the smallest size I have bought in about six years, and then someone asked me if I was pregnant. I was crushed. I could not get over it. For days. But it helped me to realize that the way I look is still too important to me. Being hurt by that comment is one thing. Allowing it to ruin my night and the next few days is another.

So needless to say, I have come to the point of really praying for humility. And I found that humility is also connected with food in God's word.

Yesterday I quoted Jesus from Matthew 4 as he used God's word against Satan when Satan tempted him to turn rocks into bread after fasting for 40 days. Jesus said, "It is written, 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

The first scripture I want to share is the one Jesus was quoting.

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Being humble means we know His place verses our place. He is God the sustainer and provider, we do not get credit for things we do because everything we have is from Him. He causes us to hunger it says, and this is one of the ways he reminds us that we need Him.

He is also testing us to see what is in our heart. Mine is full of pride. I can see that clearly and it is ugly. I know the only cure is the work He is doing in me as I continue to seek Him. He has done so much in me already, I am so thankfully He is not done!

100%

I have been saying for probably two years that I have my food issues 80% figured out and I wanted more than anything to figure out the last 20%. Well, I can finally say, I I am there! I thought working on this blog would get me there. And, it has helped. One of the ways it has helped me the most, is by showing me the passion I have, to help people who are struggling with these issues. I have had a lot of women and men open up to me about their lifetime struggle with weight and food. But writing this blog, and even helping people, has not brought me to 100%. It was God's word.

And now I feel I have so much to say. It might end up being multiple more blog posts to tell you about what I learned and what God has to say about food, nourishment, craving, satisfaction, eating, hunger, and more.

I had the opportunity to be a counselor at Wildwood, a discipleship camp at Hume Lake. At Wildwood, they give you approximately an hour to be in God's word and have time alone with Him, every day. I loved this time. The first day we had "solo time" our leader talked about God's word being like food. His focus had nothing to do with diet or weight issues but he quoted Matthew 4:1-4. In this passage, Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and He was hungry. "The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

After talking about these verses with us he told us we can use a lot of other things to sustain or nourish us when we should use God's word. He posed the question, "Where am I seeking my food/nourishment?"

Basically, we all feel like we need to be filled up. Some of us go literally to food even when we aren't literally hungry. Some of us want approval, or success, or there is an endless list I could write about that aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but when we use them to take the place of God's word, we can never really be satisfied. This wasn't new news to me, and I think I have talked about it before in this blog. But when he asked the question, it made me want to see what else God's word said about food.

So for the next few days of solo time, I was able to look up and study these things. I learned so much. I can't wait to tell you about it. I am going to have to spread it out between posts. For now, look up Matthew 4 and ask yourself the question that our leader asked, where are you seeking your food/nourishment?

I Won't Go Back

I remember when I first moved here to Kingsburg. It is so hot here (pretty much over 100 degrees all summer) and I was quietly refusing to wear shorts and there is no way you would catch me in a tank top. I was miserable. MISERABLE!

I was overweight and bordering on obese. There is a funny thing about being overweight, some people need to lose 100 pounds or more and some need to lose 40, but the mental aspect of being fat is the same. You are self- conscious yet you have done it to yourself and you continue it. I had a million plans and a million diets that I continually failed. Instead of losing weight I would gain it.

I so remember going out to the river trying to cover up my rolls and flabs and just wishing I didn't have to go. I felt disgusting. When you are overweight you are so self conscious but the only person who is really noticing it is you. Look around, there are fat people everywhere. Is there anyone pointing at them saying, "Disgusting?" No.

Your friends know you and love you no matter what you look like. They may wish you'd lose weight because then you'd stop complaining so much but they don't think about it when they look at you. Do you think about it when you look at an overweight friend?

So it is summer now and I have been wearing my shorts and my tank top. I have even worn a bathing suit in public multiple times. I still have weight to lose but I am now comfortable. That is such a perfect word, "comfortable." I was so uncomfortable before. I will not ever go back to where I was. There are a million reasons but the best is that I have come to where I am now by changing my lifestyle. I like my new lifestyle. I like the food I eat and the amount of it I eat. I am satisfied and I even enjoy food for because I don't feel guilty. I still eat ice cream and cookies but I do it in moderation. I exercise. A LOT. But I love it and I will not give it up.

If you are uncomfortable in your own skin, start making a change. Whatever you are doing that is maintaining being overweight is not worth it. Who cares if it takes two years to get to your goal weight. Will you be more comfortable once you make some healthy changes and lose 5, 10, 30 pounds... YES!

Do I really want to succeed?

I remember this idea I had in my head for the longest time, I had a suspicion that I actually didn't want myself to succeed. Why would I run 5 miles and later that day cancel it out with calories, saying "I deserve this."

I finally heard someone put a name to the thoughts I had about what I saw doing. "Self-sabotage." Having a name helped so much. I could stop myself before eating the ice cream I thought I deserved and say, "I am self-sabotaging, why am I doing this?"

But even with identifying the problem it has still been important to figure out what my reason is for not wanting to succeed. I have figured out a few reasons but there could be many for you. If you think you struggle with self-sabotage you need to figure out why you are doing it. Do you think you're not worth it? Do you want to make sure people really like you for you, and not the way you look? Are you protecting yourself somehow from being hurt with a wall of being overweight? Knowing the reason is the beginning of the healing you will need to do before you truly succeed.