“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” Galatians 5:7-9

Do you ever feel like you are going along on this Thin Within journey at a good pace, and then all of a sudden you get stuck or something gets in your way?  I know this has happened to me plenty of times.  Sometimes we have to stop and allow God to dig up what needs to be dug up so we can continue on once again, or He needs to remove the roadblock.

There have been a lot of things that have stalled me on this journey.  Mostly, it’s been lies I have believed or habits that I’ve had for numerous years.  For me, it’s been the lies that I shouldn’t be eating a certain food group, or that a well-known diet is the only thing that will help me so I better go back to dieting, being fixated on food research, etc.

Currently, we are turning our carport into a garage.  My husband and a friend have been working hard this week getting the prep-work done for the foundation before the concrete is poured.  They were working along at a good pace and they had one last corner to finish, when they realized there was some roots underneath the ground.  After several hours of digging around, what they found ended up being a tree trunk and it’s roots!   They had dug about 4 feet down, and then our neighbor came over with a chain saw and finished the job.  We had no idea there was a tree trunk under the ground!

What if they would have started at that corner first?  Would they have felt defeated?  I know I may have felt that way.  I would have been imagining roots everywhere!

We can go along at a steady pace in our Thin Within journey, and then BAM, we hit something hard.  And then we have to focus on digging around and working on hacking at something until that thing is removed.  We cannot just leave it there because it will make for a faulty foundation later on.  We can no longer pretend it’s not there.  We have to deal with it.  And we may have to ask a friend for some help.

Just like my husband and his friend, I have had to hack away at things that were giving me a faulty foundation–or that could perhaps do foundational damage later on.  It’s a lot of work to dig and dig, but our muscles get strengthened and we come away a bit stronger than before.  And for days after my muscles will remind me that I worked them out, but later on I won’t even remember.  And the best thing is that later on my foundation won’t sink because I took care of what needed to be taken care of.

When they first found the roots and realized it was a tree trunk, I remembered thinking, “So what!  Just work around it!”  But when my husband explained that it wouldn’t be good to have that tree trunk rot someday and then have the corner of our foundation cracking or sinking because of it.  Oh!  And that’s when the Lord began to pour into me what I am sharing with you today: we don’t want a sinking foundation!

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.  Matthew 7:24-27

I am guessing that you, like me, don’t want your foundation crumbling.  The best foundation to build on (and really the only foundation) should be the Rock of Christ Jesus!  Christ is our Corner Stone!  Everything should be built off of that corner.  If there’s anything else in place of the Rock, then everything is going to come sliding off and crumbling down just like the man who built his house on the sand.  Sand shifts.  The Rock stands forever. The Rock is Truth!  In relating to Thin Within, “sand” could be the lies we have believed, diet mentalities, placing our security in false securities, etc.  That tree trunk represented those things to me.  It’s all the lies that will rot in my mind over time.  So I have had to dig around the root system (the lies) and had to have some friends (accountability) help me as well.  As we dug, we exposed more rotten lies!

We can look at these “tree trunks” and give up, or we can put on our gloves and pick up our shovels and dig!  We can take the time to renew our  mind and allow the Lord to dissolve every lie (sand) and replace with truth (the Rock), or we can leave the trunk there to rot and cause future problems.  And if it’s too much for you to handle on your own, ask a friend (accountability partner) for help.  Sometimes we need twice the strength to help us overcome.

 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

How about you?

Are you stuck?  Do you need some help digging out the lies?  Do you have an accountability partner?  If not, Heidi has some great information about it here.  Are you willing to renew your  mind so God can replace those lies with truth?  Would you like some help in starting?  I would love to hear from you!