Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need to be reminded that the race I’m running is the one that leads to Jesus Christ. It’s so easy to make decisions based on other things—what will be most fun, what will be easiest, or even what will require the least amount of sacrifice.
We tend to handle our eating decisions the same way. If our main goal in life is to have fun, then it will be hard to control our eating because limiting ourselves isn’t fun. If our main goal in life is to be skinny, then we’ll have to worry about eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. If our goal in life is to both indulge ourselves and be skinny, then we’ll drive ourselves crazy because those aren’t compatible goals.
What we need to do, with both life and eating, is to run the right race, or should I say the right races, because I think there are two different kinds of races we run in the right race category.
First, we run the race of our relationship with God. Our goal with this race is to keep Him first in our lives. In that race we need boundaries that will keep food from becoming either a controlling force or an idol.
Those boundaries will be different for each person depending on their eating weaknesses. In my own life the boundaries of three meals and one snack a day helped, but there was a season when I also had to give up sweets because I felt they were controlling me. I talked about that in Freedom from Emotional Eating.
The second type of race I see us running is the individual trial race. If you look at Hebrews 11, those saints each had different things God had called them to—and because of the nature of their calling they had different weights they had to throw off.
Take Noah for example. He would have had to throw off the weight of worrying about what people thought of him in order to build the ark. I imagine he would have had to put up with a lot of ridicule. Moses would have had to throw off the temptation to live the fun and easy life in order to do a job he wasn’t crazy about doing—leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses had to keep his eyes on his ultimate goal, God, so he could have the purpose and strength to do the unpleasant task before him.
We too have things God wants us to do even though they may not seem very big compared to the Hebrews 11 people. We also have things that get in the way of what God has called us to do. Food may be one of those things.
To look at boundaries this way, we might ask ourselves: what is God calling us to do with our lives, and what boundaries would help us run that race well? This will be different for each one of us, and it will probably change as we walk through life.
It could be that food doesn’t even factor into your individual race. I was surprised to discover that it did factor into mine. One of the races God has called me to run is the race of writing for Him. And when I get to a sticky part of writing and don’t know what to do (which happens a lot), my first impulse is to go get something to eat, preferably something sweet. God, of course, would rather see me turn to Him whenever I have problems writing.
I had to ask myself, “Are sweets a weight in my life?” My answer was yes. So I went back to my old boundaries—even though I don’t need to lose weight, even though food doesn’t control me, and even though food isn’t an idol—I decided to go back to the boundaries I talked about in my Bible study. Sweets only on social occasions, holidays and out of town trips. Fruit based sweets anytime.
And you know what? I’m finally at a point in my life where I didn’t mind giving them up. It wasn’t really a big sacrifice. That’s kind of exciting.
Breaking free from emotional eating is a process, a messy, disorderly process. You start out consumed with food. The first sign of success is usually the ending of binges. The second sign is usually being able to stick to your boundaries. Then comes moderation within the boundaries. And I’m thinking the last stage is when you don’t really care too much about food.
That doesn’t mean you progress through the process in a smooth, orderly, failure-free way. On the contrary, the process is riddled with failure. It’s easy to get discouraged when you see yourself sliding back a step. It will be far less discouraging, though, when you remember the real race you're running. It’s not the race that leads to a number on the scale. It’s the race that leads to God. The number on the scale is just a side benefit.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Keep Your Eyes on the Goal: Part Two
For the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about how my last blog post relates to emotional eating. I had no idea it would cause me to
re-think my own eating boundaries, but it has. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post, but for now I’d like to talk about goals.
Here’s my question: Is the goal of being skinny a good enough goal to get you to give up the foods you love to eat, in the quantities you love to eat them? For me the answer to that question has always been no—except for special occasions, like weddings and reunions, or shocking moments, like stepping on the scale and seeing a number that you usually only see when you're pregnant.
In the past, if one of those moments happened to coincide with one of my rare bouts of actually being able to stick to a diet, I would lose weight—for awhile. But usually only until I reached an acceptable number on the scale, at which point I would joyfully give up the diet and revert back to my old ways, and eventually my old weight.
The fact was, I enjoyed recreational eating far too much to give it up
long-term for a skinny body. It was just like my old running career. The prize wasn’t worth the sacrifice.
Then one day I realized I was going after the wrong prize. That it really didn’t matter if I was skinny—but it did matter if food was affecting my relationship with God. That was the day I realized that sweets had become an idol in my life - and even though I loved God with all my heart, I was still turning to food for comfort more often than I was turning to Him. Crazy.
Although my love for God wasn't strong enough to actually get me to make the sacrifice of removing this idol from my life, it was at least strong enough to get me to want to make the sacrifice. For the first time in my life, I was willing to give up sweets--for good if necessary.
I spoke a little bit about that time in my life in Freedom from Emotional Eating, so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that having the desire to give up the idol wasn't enough to tear down the idol, just as having a desire to win races wouldn't have been enough to win races.
I also needed the right training methods (replacing lies with truth) and a good training schedule (boundaries). When the three of those things came together in my life, food lost its control over me. It’s been several years now of being free from its control, but what I just realized last week is that I’m still not free from its influence.
I’ll explain this more thoroughly in my next post. If you want food for thought between now and then, read Hebrews 11 and make a list of all the weights those old saints had to cast aside in order to run the races (or trials) that were set before them. Then spend a bit of time meditating on Hebrews 12:1-2 and ask God to show you if you have any weights you need to cast aside to run your own race. The answer might surprise you—it sure surprised me.
re-think my own eating boundaries, but it has. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post, but for now I’d like to talk about goals.
Here’s my question: Is the goal of being skinny a good enough goal to get you to give up the foods you love to eat, in the quantities you love to eat them? For me the answer to that question has always been no—except for special occasions, like weddings and reunions, or shocking moments, like stepping on the scale and seeing a number that you usually only see when you're pregnant.
In the past, if one of those moments happened to coincide with one of my rare bouts of actually being able to stick to a diet, I would lose weight—for awhile. But usually only until I reached an acceptable number on the scale, at which point I would joyfully give up the diet and revert back to my old ways, and eventually my old weight.
The fact was, I enjoyed recreational eating far too much to give it up
long-term for a skinny body. It was just like my old running career. The prize wasn’t worth the sacrifice.
Then one day I realized I was going after the wrong prize. That it really didn’t matter if I was skinny—but it did matter if food was affecting my relationship with God. That was the day I realized that sweets had become an idol in my life - and even though I loved God with all my heart, I was still turning to food for comfort more often than I was turning to Him. Crazy.
Although my love for God wasn't strong enough to actually get me to make the sacrifice of removing this idol from my life, it was at least strong enough to get me to want to make the sacrifice. For the first time in my life, I was willing to give up sweets--for good if necessary.
I spoke a little bit about that time in my life in Freedom from Emotional Eating, so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that having the desire to give up the idol wasn't enough to tear down the idol, just as having a desire to win races wouldn't have been enough to win races.
I also needed the right training methods (replacing lies with truth) and a good training schedule (boundaries). When the three of those things came together in my life, food lost its control over me. It’s been several years now of being free from its control, but what I just realized last week is that I’m still not free from its influence.
I’ll explain this more thoroughly in my next post. If you want food for thought between now and then, read Hebrews 11 and make a list of all the weights those old saints had to cast aside in order to run the races (or trials) that were set before them. Then spend a bit of time meditating on Hebrews 12:1-2 and ask God to show you if you have any weights you need to cast aside to run your own race. The answer might surprise you—it sure surprised me.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Keep your eyes on the Goal
When I was a freshman in college I joined the long distance cross-country track team. Now, I can just imagine what you might be thinking. Wow, Barb, must be really athletic if she was in cross country in college. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I joined the track team because I was a nice person, not an athletic person. Let me backtrack a bit. During the fall of my freshman year I made the mistake of taking a lifesaving course. The reason I say it was a mistake is because the teacher of the lifesaving course was also the coach of the cross country team. And that team only had four members on it. They needed five to compete. (Can you see where this is going?)
I had a terrible time saying no in those days, so when the coach asked me to join the team, I thought, “How bad could it be? It’s just a couple of months, and I do kind of like to run (emphasis on the kind of).” So I joined the team.
What I discovered was that when I had to get up at 5 a.m. (thank you, coach) and drive twenty miles out of town to find some hills to run three days a week—and then run for more than twenty minutes at a stretch once I got there—I no longer liked to run. But I felt too guilty to quit the team—because if I left, they wouldn’t have a team.
The races were even worse than the practices. I didn’t have a competitive bone in my body when it came to sports, and I always came in last. I just didn’t care enough about the goal of winning to work that hard at running. Instead my focus was on “Why am I running? This is so not fun. I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And that attitude got me last place every single time.
It occurs to me now that my walk with God is much like those races I used to run. If I keep my focus on what I’m giving up for God (I can’t believe I have to suffer like this), I’ll have a bad attitude—and I won’t do well in the race.
But if I keep my focus on God Himself, the Prize at the end of the race—I’ll do much better. Those hardships along the way won’t seem like such a big deal anymore, because God is worth the sacrifice.
This is true in every step of my Christian walk—whether it’s working on the sin in my life when it would be so much easier not to, doing what God has called me to do when I don’t necessarily enjoy it, or even continuing to press on when I see others dropping out of the race—if I keep my focus on who God is and why I’m doing what I’m doing, I’ll have a better attitude. And I’ll be far more likely to run the race victoriously.
The incredible thing about God is that He runs the race with me. He not only runs alongside me, offering encouraging words and help when I need it, He also stands at the finish line, cheering me on, eager to put His arms around me and shout, “Well done, good and faithful servant!!!”
When He’s my focus, I’m not only willing to suffer for Him—I’m eager to suffer for Him. I just need to keep my eyes on Him.
In my next post, I’ll look at this whole idea in the context of emotional eating.
I joined the track team because I was a nice person, not an athletic person. Let me backtrack a bit. During the fall of my freshman year I made the mistake of taking a lifesaving course. The reason I say it was a mistake is because the teacher of the lifesaving course was also the coach of the cross country team. And that team only had four members on it. They needed five to compete. (Can you see where this is going?)
I had a terrible time saying no in those days, so when the coach asked me to join the team, I thought, “How bad could it be? It’s just a couple of months, and I do kind of like to run (emphasis on the kind of).” So I joined the team.
What I discovered was that when I had to get up at 5 a.m. (thank you, coach) and drive twenty miles out of town to find some hills to run three days a week—and then run for more than twenty minutes at a stretch once I got there—I no longer liked to run. But I felt too guilty to quit the team—because if I left, they wouldn’t have a team.
The races were even worse than the practices. I didn’t have a competitive bone in my body when it came to sports, and I always came in last. I just didn’t care enough about the goal of winning to work that hard at running. Instead my focus was on “Why am I running? This is so not fun. I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And that attitude got me last place every single time.
It occurs to me now that my walk with God is much like those races I used to run. If I keep my focus on what I’m giving up for God (I can’t believe I have to suffer like this), I’ll have a bad attitude—and I won’t do well in the race.
But if I keep my focus on God Himself, the Prize at the end of the race—I’ll do much better. Those hardships along the way won’t seem like such a big deal anymore, because God is worth the sacrifice.
This is true in every step of my Christian walk—whether it’s working on the sin in my life when it would be so much easier not to, doing what God has called me to do when I don’t necessarily enjoy it, or even continuing to press on when I see others dropping out of the race—if I keep my focus on who God is and why I’m doing what I’m doing, I’ll have a better attitude. And I’ll be far more likely to run the race victoriously.
The incredible thing about God is that He runs the race with me. He not only runs alongside me, offering encouraging words and help when I need it, He also stands at the finish line, cheering me on, eager to put His arms around me and shout, “Well done, good and faithful servant!!!”
When He’s my focus, I’m not only willing to suffer for Him—I’m eager to suffer for Him. I just need to keep my eyes on Him.
In my next post, I’ll look at this whole idea in the context of emotional eating.
Friday, October 16, 2009
My life is better when I stick to my boundaries
Belief: That looks good. I should eat it.
Truth: My life is better when I stick to my boundaries.
Where do I get the idea that life will be better if I do the things that aren’t good for me?
Well, the idea’s been around since the beginning of mankind. Just look at Eve in the garden with Satan. He convinced her pretty easily that life would be better if she did what God had told her not to do.
He was tricky, though. He didn’t say, “Hey, Eve, God told you not to do this because He knew it wouldn’t be good for you—that it would make your life worse in the long run. But why don’t you disobey Him, anyway? After all, isn’t five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?”
No, he didn’t say that. He wanted Eve to forget about the long-term consequences of disobeying God. And he made her forget by focusing her attention on how fun, how really fun, it would be to eat that fruit.
Don’t we see the same principles at work in our own lives? When we break our boundaries, what are we focusing on? The fact that breaking our boundaries will lead to discouragement, weight gain, hopelessness, health problems, lethargy, laziness, depression, and not being able to wear our cute clothes? Or the fact that breaking our boundaries will be fun and tasty for five minutes?
Obviously, it’s the second. What we need to do is start asking ourselves this question when we're tempted to break our boundaries: Is five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?
And of course, the answer will be no. Our lives are better when we stick to our boundaries - even when the potential boundary breaker is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup blizzard. The more often I drill that into my head, the better off I’ll be.
Excuse me, I need to go ask myself a question.
Truth: My life is better when I stick to my boundaries.
Where do I get the idea that life will be better if I do the things that aren’t good for me?
Well, the idea’s been around since the beginning of mankind. Just look at Eve in the garden with Satan. He convinced her pretty easily that life would be better if she did what God had told her not to do.
He was tricky, though. He didn’t say, “Hey, Eve, God told you not to do this because He knew it wouldn’t be good for you—that it would make your life worse in the long run. But why don’t you disobey Him, anyway? After all, isn’t five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?”
No, he didn’t say that. He wanted Eve to forget about the long-term consequences of disobeying God. And he made her forget by focusing her attention on how fun, how really fun, it would be to eat that fruit.
Don’t we see the same principles at work in our own lives? When we break our boundaries, what are we focusing on? The fact that breaking our boundaries will lead to discouragement, weight gain, hopelessness, health problems, lethargy, laziness, depression, and not being able to wear our cute clothes? Or the fact that breaking our boundaries will be fun and tasty for five minutes?
Obviously, it’s the second. What we need to do is start asking ourselves this question when we're tempted to break our boundaries: Is five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?
And of course, the answer will be no. Our lives are better when we stick to our boundaries - even when the potential boundary breaker is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup blizzard. The more often I drill that into my head, the better off I’ll be.
Excuse me, I need to go ask myself a question.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Getting What We Want
And he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. 2 Samuel 12:20
I’ve been reading 2 Samuel in my quiet times, and the thing that keeps hitting me is how submissive David is to God. And how human he is. It comforts me to know that God calls him a man after his own heart even though he messes up from time to time.
Take the time with Bathsheba and Uriah. As I was reading that story, I wondered if David was ever really convicted about his sin before Nathan came and talked to him. Do you suppose he was so used to getting what he wanted that he didn’t even recognize it was wrong to take another man’s wife and then have him killed to cover up his sin?
And do you suppose we have the same problem? Are we so used to getting what we want that we don’t even realize it’s wrong to make “getting whatever we want” a goal? I see that with eating. Most of the dieting articles in magazines focus on indulgence.
Take this headline: Eat whatever you want and lose weight! I don’t know about you, but if I ate whatever I wanted, I’d gain a hundred pounds. Surely there must be a glitch somewhere in that program.
Some articles take a different approach. They admit we can’t eat whatever we want, but instead they encourage us to indulge ourselves in other ways. Take a bubble bath. Go shopping. Watch a good movie.
There’s nothing wrong with doing those things, but we need to be careful of our focus. Does God really want us to live a life of indulgence? Look where indulgence got David.
And look where it gets us. In the physical realm it’s a weight gain, but that’s not all. Think of the emotional consequences of focusing our lives on getting what we want. Discontentment, boredom, resentment, depression, unhappiness—you name it. We’ll never get enough of what we want to be happy until we reach the point where what we want is God. That’s when joy kicks in.
David always comes back to that point. Look at verse 20 of 2 Samuel 12: And he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.
David didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Bathsheba. He didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Uriah. No, he worshiped after he got what he didn’t want. He worshiped as soon as he heard the news that his baby died—the baby he had been pleading with God to spare for the previous six days.
Isn’t that mind boggling? David was so submitted to God by that point that he didn’t even hesitate. God didn’t give him what he wanted, but he worshiped Him anyway.
That’s the point I want to reach. Where everything I do is about God. Where I worship Him even when I don’t get what I want. First reaction.
I’ll know I’ve made progress when I no longer feel like I deserve to be indulged.
Two hours later (I guess I haven't made progress yet.)
Yes, I know, I'm commenting on my own blog. Pathetic, isn't it? I just have to tell you what God did this morning.
I was sitting down to write and I didn't feel like writing, so I said, "I know, I'll check my e-mails." The only problem was that I wasn't supposed to check my e-mails because I have a boundary of three times a day, and I'd already done my morning check. The only reason I wanted to check them again was to - you got it - indulge myself.
So I said to myself (after checking my e-mails and then truth journaling about it), "Okay, I'm supposed to go to God for help, not my e-mails." So I went back to the Bible, continuing to read on in 2 Samuel, not really thinking there would be anything that would apply to my situation in 2 Samuel.
And that's when it hit me. In chapter 19, David submits again - this time to Joab, and I realized, I need to submit to God - even if it's just for an hour of writing. That instead of checking my e-mails (which is what I felt like doing), I should be worshiping Him.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
I found that to be true this morning.
I’ve been reading 2 Samuel in my quiet times, and the thing that keeps hitting me is how submissive David is to God. And how human he is. It comforts me to know that God calls him a man after his own heart even though he messes up from time to time.
Take the time with Bathsheba and Uriah. As I was reading that story, I wondered if David was ever really convicted about his sin before Nathan came and talked to him. Do you suppose he was so used to getting what he wanted that he didn’t even recognize it was wrong to take another man’s wife and then have him killed to cover up his sin?
And do you suppose we have the same problem? Are we so used to getting what we want that we don’t even realize it’s wrong to make “getting whatever we want” a goal? I see that with eating. Most of the dieting articles in magazines focus on indulgence.
Take this headline: Eat whatever you want and lose weight! I don’t know about you, but if I ate whatever I wanted, I’d gain a hundred pounds. Surely there must be a glitch somewhere in that program.
Some articles take a different approach. They admit we can’t eat whatever we want, but instead they encourage us to indulge ourselves in other ways. Take a bubble bath. Go shopping. Watch a good movie.
There’s nothing wrong with doing those things, but we need to be careful of our focus. Does God really want us to live a life of indulgence? Look where indulgence got David.
And look where it gets us. In the physical realm it’s a weight gain, but that’s not all. Think of the emotional consequences of focusing our lives on getting what we want. Discontentment, boredom, resentment, depression, unhappiness—you name it. We’ll never get enough of what we want to be happy until we reach the point where what we want is God. That’s when joy kicks in.
David always comes back to that point. Look at verse 20 of 2 Samuel 12: And he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.
David didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Bathsheba. He didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Uriah. No, he worshiped after he got what he didn’t want. He worshiped as soon as he heard the news that his baby died—the baby he had been pleading with God to spare for the previous six days.
Isn’t that mind boggling? David was so submitted to God by that point that he didn’t even hesitate. God didn’t give him what he wanted, but he worshiped Him anyway.
That’s the point I want to reach. Where everything I do is about God. Where I worship Him even when I don’t get what I want. First reaction.
I’ll know I’ve made progress when I no longer feel like I deserve to be indulged.
Two hours later (I guess I haven't made progress yet.)
Yes, I know, I'm commenting on my own blog. Pathetic, isn't it? I just have to tell you what God did this morning.
I was sitting down to write and I didn't feel like writing, so I said, "I know, I'll check my e-mails." The only problem was that I wasn't supposed to check my e-mails because I have a boundary of three times a day, and I'd already done my morning check. The only reason I wanted to check them again was to - you got it - indulge myself.
So I said to myself (after checking my e-mails and then truth journaling about it), "Okay, I'm supposed to go to God for help, not my e-mails." So I went back to the Bible, continuing to read on in 2 Samuel, not really thinking there would be anything that would apply to my situation in 2 Samuel.
And that's when it hit me. In chapter 19, David submits again - this time to Joab, and I realized, I need to submit to God - even if it's just for an hour of writing. That instead of checking my e-mails (which is what I felt like doing), I should be worshiping Him.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
I found that to be true this morning.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
How to Handle a Trial
I don’t know how many times God has convicted me with what He’s given me to write. That happened to me this morning when I was working on a seminar I’m teaching at our church later this month.
In the seminar, I’ll be talking about how we normally handle trials and how that differs from the way God wants us to handle trials. As I was writing it, I was thinking to myself, well, I handle trials pretty well so it will be easy for me to teach this workshop. The more I wrote though, the more I began to see that while I handle some trials well, there’s certainly room for improvement—a lot of room, as a matter of a fact.
Take today, for instance. My trial today is that it’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’m already bored. My kids are asleep, my husband’s off grouse hunting, it’s too early to call a friend, and I’ve already had breakfast and my two cups of coffee for the day. My trial is boredom, and even though it’s a little trial, I still have to figure out how to handle it in a godly way.
According to my advice in the seminar, I should handle the trial by asking myself these two questions: How can I love God best in this trial, and how can I love my neighbor best in this trial?
But I wasn’t following my own advice this morning. Instead, I was asking this question: How can I have the most fun in this trial? (You understand I wasn’t asking the question out loud, but that was the direction my mind was taking. )
I thought of a few ideas of how to have fun, but they seemed like too much work, which showed I was also operating with another concern: What is the easiest way to handle this trial? (Which by the way is why I have a problem with emotional eating -- it's an easy way to add a little excitement to life.)
Now, normally, I would just go on my merry way, trying to find something fun to do. But instead, God used the things I'd written earlier this morning to convict me. I wasn't practicing what I preached.
So I asked myself the two questions I'm planning to tell everyone else to ask: How can I love God best in this situation? The answer? I could have another quiet time. How can I love my neighbor best? Well, since most of my real neighbors are asleep, I could love my internet neighbors and write a blog. So you see, that’s what I decided to do.
I would love to hear some of the wrong questions all of you ask when you’re in a trial. This is the list I’ve come up with so far:
1. What will be most fun?
2. What will be easiest?
3. What will be best for me?
4. What will give me the greatest life?
5. What will make me look the best?
Can you think of any I missed? If you can, please e-mail me or list it in the comments. I’m not giving the workshop until later this month, so I can still add questions to the list at this point.
Meanwhile, I better get going. I have some loving God and loving my neighbor to do. (And I will try to refrain from loving my refrigerator.)
P.S. I just read this blog over again, and want to add one thing. I'm not saying I can't ever have fun in life. I'm just saying I shouldn't live my life for fun - which is what I tend to do. Others focus on accomplishment, the approval of others, etc. My weakness is fun - so that's why I need to be careful about handling my boredom by focusing on fun. There are a lot of things to do around the house today that I consider boring, but really need to get done so I can focus my life on doing the other things God has called me to do. So, I hate to say this, but probably the next thing I should do if I want to love God and others is paperwork:(
In the seminar, I’ll be talking about how we normally handle trials and how that differs from the way God wants us to handle trials. As I was writing it, I was thinking to myself, well, I handle trials pretty well so it will be easy for me to teach this workshop. The more I wrote though, the more I began to see that while I handle some trials well, there’s certainly room for improvement—a lot of room, as a matter of a fact.
Take today, for instance. My trial today is that it’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’m already bored. My kids are asleep, my husband’s off grouse hunting, it’s too early to call a friend, and I’ve already had breakfast and my two cups of coffee for the day. My trial is boredom, and even though it’s a little trial, I still have to figure out how to handle it in a godly way.
According to my advice in the seminar, I should handle the trial by asking myself these two questions: How can I love God best in this trial, and how can I love my neighbor best in this trial?
But I wasn’t following my own advice this morning. Instead, I was asking this question: How can I have the most fun in this trial? (You understand I wasn’t asking the question out loud, but that was the direction my mind was taking. )
I thought of a few ideas of how to have fun, but they seemed like too much work, which showed I was also operating with another concern: What is the easiest way to handle this trial? (Which by the way is why I have a problem with emotional eating -- it's an easy way to add a little excitement to life.)
Now, normally, I would just go on my merry way, trying to find something fun to do. But instead, God used the things I'd written earlier this morning to convict me. I wasn't practicing what I preached.
So I asked myself the two questions I'm planning to tell everyone else to ask: How can I love God best in this situation? The answer? I could have another quiet time. How can I love my neighbor best? Well, since most of my real neighbors are asleep, I could love my internet neighbors and write a blog. So you see, that’s what I decided to do.
I would love to hear some of the wrong questions all of you ask when you’re in a trial. This is the list I’ve come up with so far:
1. What will be most fun?
2. What will be easiest?
3. What will be best for me?
4. What will give me the greatest life?
5. What will make me look the best?
Can you think of any I missed? If you can, please e-mail me or list it in the comments. I’m not giving the workshop until later this month, so I can still add questions to the list at this point.
Meanwhile, I better get going. I have some loving God and loving my neighbor to do. (And I will try to refrain from loving my refrigerator.)
P.S. I just read this blog over again, and want to add one thing. I'm not saying I can't ever have fun in life. I'm just saying I shouldn't live my life for fun - which is what I tend to do. Others focus on accomplishment, the approval of others, etc. My weakness is fun - so that's why I need to be careful about handling my boredom by focusing on fun. There are a lot of things to do around the house today that I consider boring, but really need to get done so I can focus my life on doing the other things God has called me to do. So, I hate to say this, but probably the next thing I should do if I want to love God and others is paperwork:(
Monday, September 28, 2009
Yahoo Group
Hi Everyone,
A month or two ago I got an e-mail from Elizabeth saying she would like to start a Yahoo group where women who were going through Freedom from Emotional Eating could get together and share their journeys. I thought it was a great idea.
She has it up and running now and the link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FFEE/?yguid=133756361. Just cut and paste that into your browser and it should direct you to the site. The name of the group is FFEE, so if the link doesn't work just do a search for FFEE at www.yahoo.com/groups. Elizabeth is the moderator, so she can answer any questions you have when you join the group.
I'm really happy she had this idea and was willing to set it up as I am a hopeless non-techie! This should be a great place to get encouragement and help as you go through the Bible study. I'll be checking in from time to time as well, so if you have questions, go ahead and ask them in the forum - we can all help each other.
Hope to see you there!
Barb
A month or two ago I got an e-mail from Elizabeth saying she would like to start a Yahoo group where women who were going through Freedom from Emotional Eating could get together and share their journeys. I thought it was a great idea.
She has it up and running now and the link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FFEE/?yguid=133756361. Just cut and paste that into your browser and it should direct you to the site. The name of the group is FFEE, so if the link doesn't work just do a search for FFEE at www.yahoo.com/groups. Elizabeth is the moderator, so she can answer any questions you have when you join the group.
I'm really happy she had this idea and was willing to set it up as I am a hopeless non-techie! This should be a great place to get encouragement and help as you go through the Bible study. I'll be checking in from time to time as well, so if you have questions, go ahead and ask them in the forum - we can all help each other.
Hope to see you there!
Barb
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
I'll just break my boundaries, and then journal about it afterwards.
It’s been a busy week of canning and writing and school, but I thought I’d take a quick break to write a blog post. I hope you’ve all been doing well at sticking to your boundaries—I’ve actually been doing pretty well myself, so I pulled this one up from my (huge) file of past lie-truth charts.
Beliefs: 1. It would be so relaxing to have a lemon bar and listen to this beautiful music. 2. I was going to have one later, anyway (so it’s okay to have it now instead). 3. I’ll have one now and just journal about it after I eat it.
Truths: 1. True – although breaking my boundaries on a regular basis does not lead to a relaxing lifestyle. Having an eating obsession is stressful! 2. That’s like saying, “I’m going to get married later anyway, so I’ll just have sex now.” (Well, not quite, but I guess I was in a drastic mood the day I wrote this!) The truth is that breaking the boundaries once leads to a lifestyle of breaking the boundaries. My life is much better when I stick to them. 3. True (that’s what I did). Although, it would be much better to stick to the boundaries, it’s far better to plan to break them and journal about it, than to plan to break them and not journal about it.
The surprising truth is that even if you willfully break your boundaries, planning all the while to truth journal about it—and then actually follow through with it and truth journal—it will still be a good experience of replacing the lies you believe with truth. If your focus is on changing the way you think about food, the only real failure is when you break your boundaries and don’t renew your mind afterward.
But of course, it’s even better not to break your boundaries to begin with. (Not to mention the fact that if you did this on a regular basis, you might gain fifty pounds by the time the truth finally kicks in!)
Beliefs: 1. It would be so relaxing to have a lemon bar and listen to this beautiful music. 2. I was going to have one later, anyway (so it’s okay to have it now instead). 3. I’ll have one now and just journal about it after I eat it.
Truths: 1. True – although breaking my boundaries on a regular basis does not lead to a relaxing lifestyle. Having an eating obsession is stressful! 2. That’s like saying, “I’m going to get married later anyway, so I’ll just have sex now.” (Well, not quite, but I guess I was in a drastic mood the day I wrote this!) The truth is that breaking the boundaries once leads to a lifestyle of breaking the boundaries. My life is much better when I stick to them. 3. True (that’s what I did). Although, it would be much better to stick to the boundaries, it’s far better to plan to break them and journal about it, than to plan to break them and not journal about it.
The surprising truth is that even if you willfully break your boundaries, planning all the while to truth journal about it—and then actually follow through with it and truth journal—it will still be a good experience of replacing the lies you believe with truth. If your focus is on changing the way you think about food, the only real failure is when you break your boundaries and don’t renew your mind afterward.
But of course, it’s even better not to break your boundaries to begin with. (Not to mention the fact that if you did this on a regular basis, you might gain fifty pounds by the time the truth finally kicks in!)
Monday, September 14, 2009
When It Seems Like God is Asking Too Much
I’d like to tell you about a friend I met over the internet. I’ll call her Amanda. Amanda ordered my Bible study and wrote me after the first chapter, telling me how much she liked it. She felt sure God would use it in her life.
Then she got to the second chapter—the one on trials. Amanda is very familiar with trials. She has some serious health issues and a husband who is not only emotionally distant, but has also chosen not to work for much of their married life. You can imagine how that would make you feel toward your husband, and it was no different for Amanda. She’d been angry with him for more than thirty years.
It was the third lesson of the second chapter that really stumped Amanda—the one where Bill is being a deadbeat and Mary has to choose whether or not she’s going to forgive him. Amanda e-mailed me and told me she was having a difficult time getting past that lesson. I encouraged her to move on—that the fourth lesson in the chapter might help.
Well, Amanda did move on, and God began to do a great work in her heart. Let me let Amanda tell you:
My truth journaling started out angry and defensive, I was trying to justify to God why I should be allowed to hold this grudge and anger. And then I was angry that your Bible study should even suggest that I deal with this!! I cried hot angry tears. I thought there was no way you could understand just how hard my marriage was. After all I was trying to stop emotional eating, what did my emotions have to do with my husband!!
Boy did I find out!! Yes, then the lies started to pour out. And I realized I was not wanting to forgive myself for marrying my husband. You know like - how could I have been so stupid. So I truth journal ALL of those emotions and am starting to see the lies that I had no idea were there!! Then I started feeling lighter, freer. But if I stop truth journaling about this when I think I'm too busy I can feel the heaviness returning. I'm looking so forward to God helping me resolve this. I now believe He will, no matter how my husband treats me, I can cling to Him!
This was only the beginning. God has continued to work in Amanda’s life. She realized she needed to work on the anger before she could really break free from the emotional eating, and so that’s where she focused her efforts. God blessed her work. This is what she wrote to me later:
I realize now that as God allows my husband to follow his own will, God is telling me to come even closer to Him. Maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes those angry lies become security blankets! So letting go of them for me was frightening. The biggest lie I believed was that I deserved to be angry with my husband if he sinned. It is freeing to finally let go!
I can see now that my husband's behavior comes from the lies that he is caught up in. I can feel empathy and sadness for him, instead of anger. And I no longer expect God to fix him for me! :o)
Have you ever been in a situation like Amanda, where you feel like you have a right to hold on to your anger? I know I have, and I’m guessing most of us have. For me, anger was a stumbling block. It got in the way of my relationship with God. When I was finally willing to forgive, that’s when I really started growing close to Him.
It was the truth that made me willing to forgive. As I carried my thoughts captive to Jesus Christ through truth journaling and option charts, God gave me the strength to forgive and submit to Him. I found it to be an incredibly painful experience, but the joy that followed made it worth the pain.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone else is having a difficult time with the second chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating. I realize the lesson in the third day of that chapter is a hard one—especially being raised in a culture that tells us we have a right to certain things. Let me encourage you today that God is always worth the sacrifices we make for Him.
Sometimes it helps to have someone to talk through your problems with. In another week or two I’ll be telling you about a yahoo group being formed where women who are doing Freedom from Emotional Eating can get together and discuss the things you’re working on. I hope it will be a blessing.
Then she got to the second chapter—the one on trials. Amanda is very familiar with trials. She has some serious health issues and a husband who is not only emotionally distant, but has also chosen not to work for much of their married life. You can imagine how that would make you feel toward your husband, and it was no different for Amanda. She’d been angry with him for more than thirty years.
It was the third lesson of the second chapter that really stumped Amanda—the one where Bill is being a deadbeat and Mary has to choose whether or not she’s going to forgive him. Amanda e-mailed me and told me she was having a difficult time getting past that lesson. I encouraged her to move on—that the fourth lesson in the chapter might help.
Well, Amanda did move on, and God began to do a great work in her heart. Let me let Amanda tell you:
My truth journaling started out angry and defensive, I was trying to justify to God why I should be allowed to hold this grudge and anger. And then I was angry that your Bible study should even suggest that I deal with this!! I cried hot angry tears. I thought there was no way you could understand just how hard my marriage was. After all I was trying to stop emotional eating, what did my emotions have to do with my husband!!
Boy did I find out!! Yes, then the lies started to pour out. And I realized I was not wanting to forgive myself for marrying my husband. You know like - how could I have been so stupid. So I truth journal ALL of those emotions and am starting to see the lies that I had no idea were there!! Then I started feeling lighter, freer. But if I stop truth journaling about this when I think I'm too busy I can feel the heaviness returning. I'm looking so forward to God helping me resolve this. I now believe He will, no matter how my husband treats me, I can cling to Him!
This was only the beginning. God has continued to work in Amanda’s life. She realized she needed to work on the anger before she could really break free from the emotional eating, and so that’s where she focused her efforts. God blessed her work. This is what she wrote to me later:
I realize now that as God allows my husband to follow his own will, God is telling me to come even closer to Him. Maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes those angry lies become security blankets! So letting go of them for me was frightening. The biggest lie I believed was that I deserved to be angry with my husband if he sinned. It is freeing to finally let go!
I can see now that my husband's behavior comes from the lies that he is caught up in. I can feel empathy and sadness for him, instead of anger. And I no longer expect God to fix him for me! :o)
Have you ever been in a situation like Amanda, where you feel like you have a right to hold on to your anger? I know I have, and I’m guessing most of us have. For me, anger was a stumbling block. It got in the way of my relationship with God. When I was finally willing to forgive, that’s when I really started growing close to Him.
It was the truth that made me willing to forgive. As I carried my thoughts captive to Jesus Christ through truth journaling and option charts, God gave me the strength to forgive and submit to Him. I found it to be an incredibly painful experience, but the joy that followed made it worth the pain.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone else is having a difficult time with the second chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating. I realize the lesson in the third day of that chapter is a hard one—especially being raised in a culture that tells us we have a right to certain things. Let me encourage you today that God is always worth the sacrifices we make for Him.
Sometimes it helps to have someone to talk through your problems with. In another week or two I’ll be telling you about a yahoo group being formed where women who are doing Freedom from Emotional Eating can get together and discuss the things you’re working on. I hope it will be a blessing.
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