Welcome to our Study of Thin Within! We are using the Thin Within book by Arthur and Judy Halliday published in 2002 (or later is fine, too).
If you haven’t yet, please take some time to look over the first pages in the book, including the Table of Contents, Acknowledgments, and About the Authors sections. To see the optional assignment with questions for this section, please go here.
Before you begin your reading each day, I want to encourage you to pray that God will help you to be sensitive to His leading and what His Spirit may choose to say to you. Many find Thin Within difficult because they discover conviction where they enjoyed a lack of awareness before. 🙂 Please know that God never intends for us to be condemned. He intends for godly conviction to bring change and he provides His Holy Spirit for those who have confessed Christ to enable us to obey him.
To be in the best place to emotionally and spiritually receive what the Lord intends through this study, you will want to have plenty of time to be still, to have your bible handy, and your journal.
ASSIGNMENT: This week, please prayerfully (I sound like a broken record!) read and “do:”
- Introduction
- Before You Begin
- Day One.
These sections go through page 14, so please read all of the book through page 14. PLEASE mark in your book, write notes in the margins, answer the questions, look up the bible verses mentioned.
Try to pace yourself through the material so that you can really absorb it as you go.
As you read and write in your book :-), please also do the following:
You will add to this list for the next 12 weeks. Please don’t consider this optional. 🙂 This is fundamental and will play a LARGE part in making *this* time different for you! 🙂
Consider memorizing Zephaniah 3:17 or Isaiah 43:18, 19. Journal about what the verse you select means to you personally and how it relates to this journey at this point in time.
Questions for Pondering, Prayer and Consideration:
Introduction and Before You Begin
As you read the Introduction, take a moment to pause midway down
the pages (xiii). You will see the statement “You will experience an
invitation whispered to your soul from God–an invitation to enter
in, to draw nearer, to plunge deeper, to experience more fully the
joy and abundant living that He intends for you.” Do you hear the
invitation yet? Be sure to take a moment to still your heart long
enough so that if the invitation is whispered, you can hear it. You
may want to journal a response to this question or a prayer to God
welcoming Him to speak!
In the Introduction, there is a prayer on page xv. Can you
identify with this prayer at all? How so? If not, consider writing a
prayer that *does* reflect how you feel as you begin this journey.
In the Before you Begin section, as you complete the survey, what thoughts or insights do you have? Please take time to prayerfully be still in the presence of God and ask him to learn from the past, but to have the strength not to stay in the past. In Isaiah 43:18 he challenges you to forget what is in the past, but he *does* want you to learn from it so you can grow in Him.
Day 1
Are there ways that you rely on your performance to win the love of others or of God? (page 3) Explain.
What did you learn about yourself and how you eat and think from the “My Current Relationship with Food” exercise (pages 6, 7).
Which of the Keys to Conscious Eating are you most likely to resist or struggle with? Why? What can you do to plan for success? (pages 8-11)
Please feel free to use the comments section to respond if you like, or start your own blog. If you would like us to visit your blog, be sure to give us the link!
Lord, please be with these precious ones as they launch into this new study. Lord, some of us have read this book multiple times. But you are a God who is eager to perform a new thing. Please remove our “Been there done that” attitudes if we have them. Help us to believe Great things of our Great God and know that you have promised to perfect that which you have begun (Philippians 1:6). Thank you, Lord.
