1. I don’t like rules (and that’s a good reason not to have any).
Truth: If I only did the things in life I liked to do, my house would be so messy I’d hate living in it, my kids would be so spoiled I wouldn’t enjoy spending time with them, and I’d probably be writing this blog from my jail cell (because I really can’t stand doing my income taxes). Often it’s doing what I don’t want to do that that enables me to live the life I do want to live.
2. The rules make me want to eat.
Truth: My self-indulgent nature makes me want to eat. The rules are just a convenient scapegoat.
3. It’s not a big deal if I break the rules (after all, just one bite won’t hurt).
Truth: It actually is a big deal if I break the rules, because 99 times out of a 100, when I break the rules once, I end up breaking them again the same day—and we all know what that can lead to.
4. I can’t believe I broke the rules—I’m such a (failure, loser, etc.).
Truth: If I were capable of following the rules without ever breaking them, I wouldn’t have a problem with emotional eating! Of course I broke the rules—but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. I’m a child of God who just broke the rules. I need to figure out what made me break the rules and press on.
5. As long as I broke the rules, I might as well eat whatever I want.
Truth: As long as I broke the rules, I might as well use it as an opportunity to bring my thoughts captive to the truth through Scripture prayer or truth journaling so I’ll be less likely to break the rules next time.
6. No one can tell me how much to eat.
Truth: Sad, but true. It’d be a lot easier if my mom were here to control what I eat, but since she isn’t I better set some rules of my own.
7. Rules are too restrictive (and that’s a bad thing).
Truth: Living without rules and indulging the flesh leads to slavery (which is incredibly restrictive). Following the rules will give me the freedom I’ve always longed for.
8. All I have to do is follow the rules, and then I can get this weight off and keep it off.
Truth: I’ll never be able to follow the rules in my own strength if this is a stronghold for me, so all I have to do is bring my thoughts captive to the truth about a million times (alright, that’s a lie—it only seems like a million times) until I believe the truth so deeply that I actually don’t feel like breaking the rules anymore.
9. There’s no use following the rules anymore today since I already broke them.
Truth: There’s no use trying to do this in my own strength today, now that I’ve already broken the rules. I know from past experience that the only thing that will stop me now is taking the time to renew my mind. I better carve out some time to truth journal or pray Scripture before I eat anything else.
10. If I can just find the right rule (eating when hungry, having lifelong boundaries, etc.) it will be easy to control my eating.
Truth: If I’m an emotional eater, I’ll never find a rule that makes it easy. If I keep carrying my thoughts captive to the truth, though, one day I'll start believing the truth and on that day, it will start to get easier.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Rules
I’ve been thinking about rules lately and how they apply to emotional eating. The question is, “Do rules help us or hurt us in our struggle with emotional eating? Is it the rules themselves that make us feel like eating too much or is it something else?”
Because we know we’ve been saved by grace, and not by following the rules, I think we have a tendency to think that rules aren't very important. But is that true?
1 Timothy 1:8-9a says this: But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners . . .
At first glance we may look at this verse and think, “Doesn’t that just apply to non-Christians? Wouldn't we be considered the righteous?"
Well, yes and no. Yes, we are counted as righteous through our faith (Romans 4:3, 5:1), but no, we're not always righteous in our behavior (Romans 3:10-12, 23). And where we're not righteous, we need the law.
I see this principle at work in my own life. I tend to be "lawless and rebellious" in the area of eating—I feel like I should be able to eat whatever and whenever I want. I don’t like placing restrictions on my eating. Because of this I need a law.
A naturally thin person on the other hand tends to eat only when she’s hungry. She’s not stamping her foot and saying, “I should be able to eat whatever I feel like eating,” because food isn’t that big of a deal to her. She can easily give it up. In her case, it would be legalistic to have rules about eating because she doesn’t need them.
Timothy says the law isn’t made for the righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. That’s me when it comes to food.
Will the rules keep me from emotional eating? No, they can't save me any more than following the law can save me. Why? Because I'm not capable of following the rules (or the law) in my own strength.
Then, you may ask, if I'm not capable of following the rules, why should I have them? This is the answer - because they show me my rebellious ways and tell me when I need to go to God for help.
Let's see how this works with emotional eating. Let's say my rule is, "I'll eat only when I'm hungry." If it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I’m craving something to eat even though I'm not hungry, my "rule" gives me a wake-up call. Barb, why do you feel like eating? Are you really hungry or are you going to food to satisfy your other needs? Are you willing to submit to God in this area of your life or are you going to insist on eating whenever you feel like eating?
If I didn’t have the rule, I might not notice that I’m eating for the wrong reasons. The rule itself doesn’t give me the power to eat the way God wants me to eat - but it does show me when I need to go to God to get that power. In that sense, the rule helps me.
Also - it's not the rule that's making me want to eat in the first place. I know it seems that way - after all, don't we start craving food the minute we go on a diet? Yes, of course we do, but we also feel like eating a lot when we're not on diets - we just don't notice it because when we feel like eating, we eat! It doesn't matter if we're not hungry, because we don't have any rules in place to tell us we can't eat when we're not hungry.
What the rule (law) does is point out the rebelliousness that’s already there in my heart - and it shows me that I need to go to God for help - because that's the only way I'll be able to follow the "rules."
Note: Although the rules themselves don't make me eat, the lies I believe about the rules often make me eat - and that's what I'll be talking about in my next post.
Because we know we’ve been saved by grace, and not by following the rules, I think we have a tendency to think that rules aren't very important. But is that true?
1 Timothy 1:8-9a says this: But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners . . .
At first glance we may look at this verse and think, “Doesn’t that just apply to non-Christians? Wouldn't we be considered the righteous?"
Well, yes and no. Yes, we are counted as righteous through our faith (Romans 4:3, 5:1), but no, we're not always righteous in our behavior (Romans 3:10-12, 23). And where we're not righteous, we need the law.
I see this principle at work in my own life. I tend to be "lawless and rebellious" in the area of eating—I feel like I should be able to eat whatever and whenever I want. I don’t like placing restrictions on my eating. Because of this I need a law.
A naturally thin person on the other hand tends to eat only when she’s hungry. She’s not stamping her foot and saying, “I should be able to eat whatever I feel like eating,” because food isn’t that big of a deal to her. She can easily give it up. In her case, it would be legalistic to have rules about eating because she doesn’t need them.
Timothy says the law isn’t made for the righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. That’s me when it comes to food.
Will the rules keep me from emotional eating? No, they can't save me any more than following the law can save me. Why? Because I'm not capable of following the rules (or the law) in my own strength.
Then, you may ask, if I'm not capable of following the rules, why should I have them? This is the answer - because they show me my rebellious ways and tell me when I need to go to God for help.
Let's see how this works with emotional eating. Let's say my rule is, "I'll eat only when I'm hungry." If it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I’m craving something to eat even though I'm not hungry, my "rule" gives me a wake-up call. Barb, why do you feel like eating? Are you really hungry or are you going to food to satisfy your other needs? Are you willing to submit to God in this area of your life or are you going to insist on eating whenever you feel like eating?
If I didn’t have the rule, I might not notice that I’m eating for the wrong reasons. The rule itself doesn’t give me the power to eat the way God wants me to eat - but it does show me when I need to go to God to get that power. In that sense, the rule helps me.
Also - it's not the rule that's making me want to eat in the first place. I know it seems that way - after all, don't we start craving food the minute we go on a diet? Yes, of course we do, but we also feel like eating a lot when we're not on diets - we just don't notice it because when we feel like eating, we eat! It doesn't matter if we're not hungry, because we don't have any rules in place to tell us we can't eat when we're not hungry.
What the rule (law) does is point out the rebelliousness that’s already there in my heart - and it shows me that I need to go to God for help - because that's the only way I'll be able to follow the "rules."
Note: Although the rules themselves don't make me eat, the lies I believe about the rules often make me eat - and that's what I'll be talking about in my next post.
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