I didn’t write anything up on day 12.
Day Thirteen Wind Beneath My Wings
1. The authors state on page 131, “The intimacy God wants to share with us increases as we release to Him our unmet needs and our expectations of others and ourselves. It occurs by degrees as we surrender our mind, emotions, and will to Him. It occurs in obedience to His will as we look to Him moment by moment for inspiration and accept His equipping and His empowerment. He intends that His grace should infuse every aspect of our lives.” Respond to these comments. In what ways is grace infusing every aspect of your life? Where do you yet need to allow God’s grace to seep in?
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Sometimes there seems a disconnect for me. It is my prayer that I will become fully aware of the power, provision, presence of God that is available to me through His grace. I want to eat, drink, breathe, sleep God’s grace…But it is more than a gooey goodness. Grace is MUCH more than some of what I tend to make of it.
Titus 2:11-12 says this about grace:
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age…
So often I apply depend on the “freedom” component of grace, but I must apply myself to realizing and practicing the fact that Grace also teaches me to say NO to ungodliness….whether it be the way I speak to my husband or kids, the way I drive, the way I eat….etc.
Something that I have been convicted about in my eating is greed. My 12 year old daughter asked me “Mom is overeating really a sin?” Mind you, she is rail thin and has a figure I *never* had…that I would have LOVED to have had. My son is the same. At 14 he has a youthful, but now manly, fit looking physique. My husband and I were *always* “husky” so we can’t figure out where this came from for them. LOL!
Anyhow, in responding to my daughter I mentioned to her that even if a person wants to define gluttony as something other than eating past 5 (and the bible speaks against gluttony), at the heart of my poor eating habits *are* sinful attitudes. One is greed. I don’t want to share or give up certain things. That is really a greedy attitude. The bible is clear about greed!
Additionally, I have to come back to when I won’t release a food that I really fixate on to the Lord should He ask…well, that is not only greed, but rebellion. Not that He does it very often, but what *if* God were to ask me to give up a certain food for a day, a month, a year….Would I allow it? Would I say “Of course, Lord, whatever you want. I am yours.” Or would I say “No…you don’t really mean that, Lord. You wouldn’t want to DEPRIVE me, after all, would you? I mean, I am under *grace*….” This is a misappropriation of grace! To use “grace” to fuel rebellion is ridiculous. At the heart of rebellion is pride. Gosh, the bible is so clear that God hates rebellion, which he says is as divination!!!! And pride was at the heart of the fall of Satan!
As you can see, it is easy to apply the notion of “grace” in such a way that it fuels SIN…greed, rebellion, and pride…This is WRONG.
What I hope to do is allow the TRUE grace of God…yes, the power, provision, presence of God…to permeate my life, but to realize THIS SAME GRACE teaches me to say NO to ungodliness and WORLDLY passions! I want to live a self-controlled–SPIRIT CONTROLLED–life, upright and godly. That is my passion. To do that, I must allow the TRUE grace of God to affect all my choices. NOT just the ones I “approve.”
Either I am going to live as if I am God’s or I am not. There is no inbetween. You can’t be “sort of” surrendered. Saying I am “sort of” surrendered is the same as saying someone is “sort of” pregnant. Either I am or I am not. I choose to be surrendered…completely.
The biggest conviction of my life about my eating came about three weeks ago, but today it is fresh once again.
Before I returned to Thin Within and a willingness to apply myself to allowing God access to my eating, I knew I was on a crash course, heading to an early grave. I even agonized about it. How stupid is that? I began to wonder how my husband would manage. I currently homeschool our two kids. What would he do about that? How would he manage putting our autistic son in school, when Daniel struggles so much in a school environment? How would he manage if my daughter, who is verry very connected to me, freaked and couldn’t cope with her Mom dying? What would my husband do about the horses? He wouldn’t have time to care for them…he would have to make the agonizing decision to sell them and find good homes, as he knows I wouldn’t sell or give them to just anyone…and…well, I realized that our family would be torn apart…and why? Just because I refused to let go of eating what I want when I want? How crazy is that?
This scenario that I have just described happens in homes all the times…maybe we don’t see it as related to over-eating…but consider this. I have a friend who was married to a man for years. Let’s call him Larry. They had four kids. Their marriage had been rocky, but there were promising times, too. But Larry refused to set aside his worldly passions and lusts (sound familiar?) and continued to dabble in pornography. Without going into detail, his refusal to cut his ties to this ultimately lost him his entire family. My friend was left with the heartache of having to be a single mom…it was almost like Larry had died as she tried desperately to put the pieces of her and her kids’ life back together. It was a huge shift and wreaked havoc in the family, of course. The consequences of sin are devastating.
As I pondered this a few weeks ago, I realized…really, how different was I being from the sex addict? It is so easy to look down my nose on such a one…in my self-righteous piety. How disdainful that Larry would give up so much and put his family through so much for his lusts!
But what REALLY is the difference between me and Larry? The results are the same! Families torn apart that have to find a way to start over and deal with losses that NEVER HAD TO HAPPEN, but did because someone would NOT GIVE UP SIN.
Whew.
This is majorly convicting to me even now….afresh.
Grace teaches me to say NO to ungodliness and worldly passions.
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4. On page 135 we are to list the behaviors of a naturally thin friend. Do you know anyone like that? If you would like to share with us on the forums about your friend, feel free.
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That is my sister described in the book, so I will spare you the details again! 🙂
