by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 9, 2008 | Blog
I have been struggling. Writing about TLT lessons and experiencing a passion in my heart about the Lord and this journey in the wee hours of the morning…and by evening, throwing my care to the wind and being rebellious. It isn’t about the food…it is about the heart. I have been saddened by what has been revealed to be in my heart.
The enemy also accuses me. “You are such a hypocrite and fraud! You spout off about ‘holiness’ and ‘humility’–but LOOK at you! You are arrogant and prideful and your attitude PROVES that! Why don’t you just admit that you will NEVER be all those things that you claim to be and just give it up?”
The battle is very real. In fact, I thought about not sharing today about TLT lesson because of it. But this is the VERY lesson I *should* share. It is so profound, deep, and life-changing. (Even now I battle hearing the voice of the enemy “Yeah, like *your* life has really changed, you liar!!!”)
I will ignore it…2 Corinthians teaches me I have divine power to demolish strongholds. I can tear down anything that stands against the knowledge of God and take captive any thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. So right now I choose to do so.
TLT – Day 8 – The Cross
Here is what I wrote in my journal about this day in The Lord’s Table material.
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This is a powerful lesson. Lord, please help me to experience all you have in mind. Let it settle in my mind and make it through to my experience. I want to live, breathe, and apply your Word to my life.
First, Mike Cleveland defined overeating: “Overeating is defined as continuing to eat past the point of receiving all we need to sustain our lives.”
I have shared this thought with others before and found that people sure don’t like this definition. When I want to define it differently, I am:
“invent[ing] a god of my own making, to my own liking, a god that tolerates sin and overlooks continual indulgence of the flesh. I am very lenient with myself…” (p. 24 TLT)
I don’t want to create god in an image I can “tolerate” or who tolerates me! I want to be in relationship with the one True God!
When I gave in to the temptation to overeat in my past, I allowed a wall to be built between the Lord and me. I resented the Lord, in fact, for insisting that I surrender this to Him.
The Lord offered himself on the cross, though not *just* for the forgiveness of sins–which is HUGE–a BIG deal!–But also so that I might no longer wander away from Him–so that I could stay close to Him.
1 Peter 2:25 says “Rof you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
I no longer need to stray. He has provided me a way to stay close. Thank you, Lord.
“The purpose of Jesus’ death is two-fold: first, that He might remove my sins from me and second that He might heal me from going astray and bring me back to God. It is God’s work to remove our sins from us, it is GOD’s work to heal us from going astray, and it is GOD’s work to cause us to return to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.” (p. 25, TLT)
I am reminded that I have been called for the purpose of suffering willingly like Jesus. (1 Peter 2:21)
“There is no other way to solve the sin problem than Jesus. There is no other way to be reconciled to God, to be changed from his enemy to His friend, to cease from going astray, than through Jesus.” (p. 25, TLT)
The author states that it is vital to see that overeating is a sin. We can’t hate ourselves into change as one Thin Within participant said so eloquently…but we can hate our SIN and must hate our sin!
“We must begin to detest [our sinful behaviors] with all of our being and to think of them as sin against our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in order to truly turn away from them and find victory. If we minimze them, we will continue to flirt with them and treat them as no big deal. Begin to seek the Lord about giving you a heart that hates all sin, including your sinful eating habits.” (p. 27, TLT)
Summary: Jesus provided payment for my sin and a way that I can no longer go astray. He did this by the cross. As I ask Him to do so, he will help me to detest my sin of overeating and enable me to turn from it and stay close to Him. God provided Christ out of his compassion and love for me. I want to embrace all that He has done through the cross for all I am worth!
Application: Have I asked the Lord to help me to detest all my sin? Do I agree with TLT conclusion that overeating is eating more than I need to sustain my life? Or do I think a few bites more than that is ok? Who is my authority in this? Am I willing to be humble about it? Am I willing to hear what God may clearly say about it, or do I resist? How will I choose to live differently in light of these things?
Lord, please help me to be open to whatever the truth is about this issue. If my mind and heart are closed, please show me. Whatever YOU define as sin in my life…that is what I want to detest. Lord, please work this in me. Thank you for the cross. You have poured out compassion, grace, mercy and love through offering Jesus on the cross for me. I don’t have to fear calling overeating a sin. I am not condemned! Jesus took the condemnation for me that I might be saved through Him. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 8, 2008 | Blog
This lesson is one that is near and dear to my heart. In fact, if I were to boil down my journey to just a few “valuable principles,” the heart of this lesson in TLT would be near the top of the list.
In a nutshell…it is that there is incredible value in humility.
This is a teaching throughout God’s Word, of course, and it is also foundational to Thin Within. In fact, the word “release” used by the Hallidays in Thin Within to refer to letting go of extra weight is connected to humility. As I choose, in humility, to release my unmet needs, my unmet wants, my “rights,” my “way,” my food, my body, to the Lord’s more capable hands–as I do this, which requires humility–I not only release all of these things, but I will release other things as well…wounded emotions, resentment, bitterness…. In fact, I learned that doing this is connected to releasing extra weight my body carried. VERY connected. 100 pounds worth of “connected!”
This lesson in TLT teaches that blessings come from being willing to be humble–from being willing to esteem the LORD above all things and to crucify pride in self.
When it comes to the food, overeating, and body issues, we may be better at being prideful than we realize. We plan to do it ourselves and take into our own hands the diet that will do the trick. We will embrace the prescriptive eating plans and if we overeat we will, again, take it into our own hands that we must somehow make up for it…we manipulate to make it all work out our way.
Instead, I will cease my striving. Join me. Let us lay it all down, all plans, all tactics we have for defeating this thing. It is bigger than us and the Lord is bigger than it! In humility we say, “Lord, only you have the answer.” In the moment when I am tempted, I say “YOU know best. I do not have the ‘right’ to this ______ (whatever you are tempted to have).” Let us invite the Lord to BE Lord in our lives and to have his rightful place on the throne…he RULES and REIGNS in my life. NOT me.
Day 7 Summary in Short: Humility is vital to walk this path. God will honor a humble heart. I have great need for HIM. I am impoverished apart from Him. He alone has the answer. He IS the answer.
Practically speaking: How will I allow this truth to affect me today? In what way have I, in pride, yet been clinging to my will, my way, my “rights,” my food, my body? What must I, in humility, release to the Lord? How can I–in the moment–affirm that HE is Lord and I am not?
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 6, 2008 | Blog
I believe that this is the heart of The Lord’s Table and Thin Within, too…and well, LIFE for that matter! This teaching is pivotal. I know that the sooner I embrace this and apply it to my life, the sooner I will grow in Christ-likeness. The more faithfully I apply myself to this teaching, the less food will have a worldly pull on me and the more my freedom will be a REALITY instead of just something “out there.”
Yesterday’s teaching in TLT was on the fact that food isn’t my problem…that isn’t why I struggled all those years with being heavy. It wasn’t the food’s fault. The real issue is my heart and if I will allow God to transform me.
Today kind of builds on this idea. Some quotes from the lesson to whet your appetite 🙂 :
(Again, I recommend purchasing the PRINTED study and doing it, rather than doing the online version with the assigned mentor)
The emphasis of our lvies is to be on the acquiring of and feeding on Christ (appropriating Him). – page 17
Christ is real food for the soul, and to embrace Him and feed on Him produces freedom from life-dominating and/or habitual sin.
The author goes on to explain that all the focus on planning, preparing, buying, whatever it may be…that is allowing food to have our focus. This is why dieting doesn’t reallly help change the heart. ALL the focus when dieting is on the food…the very thing I have to get away from…I have to somehow get rid of the focus on food and trade it for something else…a different focus.
Even though I am not carrying extra weight any more, this is definitely the case for me as well. It is clear to me that God wants these truths to be brought home to my heart…and applied to my life.
Referring to John 6:25-27, the author says, “Notice that…Jesus Christ changes things all around. Right in the midst of visualizing our next meal He says to Work for food that endures to eternal life. In other words, ‘change your focus from the physical to the spiritual, from food to ME!'”
He explains that this is the key to being free from our obsessing about physical food. We can’t just grit our teeth and “Just do it.” We must replace that obsession with one Holy Obsession…the Lord and His Word.
The rest of the lesson shows scripturally how “feasting on the Word of God” will be satisfying and take care of much of what lures us to food. We are retraining our brains and hearts…instead of the agitated, irritable “I want something now” landing us in the pantry or standing at the fridge, we train ourselves that this is a sign that our hearts need spiritual food…and we turn to the Lord in prayer and to his Word.
Day 6 Summary in Short: Feasting on the Lord and His Word is not only satisfying, but it is food that will last. It is eternal, not temporarl. I want to be consumed with thoughts of the Lord more than thoughts of food. I must DEPEND on the Lord.
Application: How will I begin to train myself TODAY (practically), to make this change? How will I build this godly perspective in my life that I must choose to feed on the Lord and His Word instead of physical food? When I am hungry and need to eat physical food, can I do anything that will foster this awareness even then? What?
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 5, 2008 | Blog
“Food is not the problem.”
This is something many people don’t believe. They may discover that I eat at McDonald’s so frequently that the employees all know me and my kids by name–and what we order, too! Often, people who discover that I released 100 pounds while eating french fries, donuts, and pizza with all meat topping are incredulous…It flies in the face of conventional “dieting” wisdom!
The truth is, this has never been and will never be, about the food. If you have been with me for this journey at all, you know that a few weeks ago, God laid on my heart the fact that I have made it about food again. While I have stayed at this size for just over a year now, there is this sense of fear that just won’t dissipate. Why? Because I see that my heart STILL needs to change. Left to my own devices, I would…simply…go nuts. Leave me alone with refrigerated cookie dough and I will inhale it raw or cooked and simply blink at you and say, “Is this all there is? ” (Visions of Winnie-the-Pooh come to mind…looking for that “smakerel of something sweet…” )
Recently, God convicted me that as long as I allowed my lust and greed for food to go unbridled “between 0 and 5,” I would continue to struggle with lusting for food outside of 0 and 5. While I am “holding it together” and not getting bigger, God has pointed out to me…HE WANTS MY HEART. He wants my passions to be for HIM. My obsession to be HIM. He wants all of me.
Someone I know eagerly embraced the teaching of Thin Within. She had been on the dieting merry-go-round all her life and the teaching of eating whatever you wanted as long as you were hungry and didn’t eat past satisfied delighted and thrilled her. She and her husband both released a lot of weight. The thing that I noticed though (it reflected back to me my *own* issues) was that now, instead of eating food all the time, she planned for her next meal all the time. She wanted her 0 – 5 to be “spent” on something totally wonderful so she would search for recipes, plan out what she would fix and how, go to the store and shop for the best ingredients and spend loads of time in the kitchen preparing whatever it was.
While this “worked” for her to release weight, I couldn’t help but wonder if her “addiction” might not be the same as it always was…thoughts about food, plans for food, dreaming of food, reading about food…it was still food.
Again, I say this not by way of judgment, but as confession as God used this precious woman to show me that I have been doing the same–but because I don’t like to cook, it just looks different in my life than it does in hers.
God wants to be what makes my heart skip a beat! Not the double-decadent chocolate cheesecake they serve at the deli in town. 🙂 When I daydream, he wants me to think on things not of this world, but things eternal…While I know that he is realistic and doesn’t for one minute think I will be “heavenly minded” 100% of the time, I know the Lord hopes that my heart is SET on things above, not on earthly things and that I am making headway in this.
So The Lord’s Table…the lesson where “Food is Not the Problem” totally resonates with me. Gosh, if food WERE the problem, all the fixes that we have out there to fix the food would work and Americans wouldn’t be getting bigger and bigger in spite of low-fat this and low-cal that…and the bizillions of dollars we spend on gym memberships and diet plans would make a difference! We have done a great job as a country of fixing our food to make it better.
But we are so reticent to allow God to fix our hearts. Then, if we *are* willing, we don’t stick with it…going back to that dieting mentality…”I don’t feel like trying any more…I think I wil quit!” (There is that eating the seed thing again vs. sowing the seed…)
We can’t quit this thing! This is about becoming Christlike! This is NOT a diet! It is about having the mind of Christ formed and shaped in us–even where food is concerned! So how could we quit?
The writer of TLT points out that the world’s way of dealing with overweight has an appearance of wisdom…and some of us love that scientifc-y way we get to feel when we learn metabolic this’ and that’s about food or count, graph, chart, etc…
But that is all a ruse. We want God to do a deep work in us, don’t we? I know I do. I want him to use this struggle I have had with food to teach me to depend on Him, to love Him, to need Him, to be satisfied in HIM. It isn’t about the food! It is all about my heart and surrendering it to HIM. It is, ultimately, about HIM!
Summary for Day 5’s teaching in TLT: Food is not the problem. It’s not what I eat, but why and how much…and why I eat that amount. What motivates me to eat? This needs to be dealt with in my life. My flesh is NOT to determine my eating.
Application: Is there any way in which I continue to make this be about food? Have I really forsaken my adoration of food? Or have I just changed the way in which it is manifest? (Gone from overeating to planning/fixing/shopping etc…) How will I change my thinking and my behavior today to reflect that I want to change my heart?
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 4, 2008 | Blog
There are two suggested “meal plans” with TLT. I think “Eating Plan 1” is for the birds. I take strong issue with it. This option advocates scheduled eating a certain way…and I could never choose that route as it would lead to bondage for me.
The other option, is waiting for hunger and stopping when satisfied. The old 0 and 5 that Thin Within uses.
Unfortunately, Mike Cleveland advocates waiting for a “belly growl” as the sure sign of hunger. I take issue with that, too. 🙂 Hunger is a sensation, not a sound. For many people it will be accompanied by a growl, but for the larger percentage of us, a growl accompanies digestive sounds…when we have food in our bodies and it is being processed! We may not experience a growl when we are truly stomach hungry. Thin Within teaches us to get in tune with the stomach pouch to really learn what empty feels like. I love that about Thin Within.
For those who select “Eating Plan 1” (the scheduled eating), fasting appears to be recommended and (depending on who you talk to ) *required* to be a part of TLT. I didn’t feel that the workbook alone presented it quite so “black and white.” A wonderful program, The Lord’s Table would be *perfect* in my book if it would drop the “scheduled eating” plan and definitely NOT endorse fasting for weight loss. I know that is probably not the heart of what they have in mind, but that is how it can come across. So please be cautious.
I believe so strongly that fasting is *not* to be done for weight loss that I ignore this teaching if I feel it comes up. No, I don’t mean I ignore the teaching on fasting…
What I feel convicted about is that fasting can be done to break the stronghold of sin…How? Well, when I fast because the Lord has led me to do so (as opposed to a schedule I am supposed to follow, created by man), then food isn’t an issue.
Let me explain: When fasting, any thoughts of “Should I eat now?” or “Am I hungry now?” are basically moot. It doesn’t matter. Likewise, those thoughts of “I want that…it sounds good….” …the thoughts of food outside of hunger–all thoughts of food have no pull on me because of my God-directed commitment to fast that day.
Instead, feelings of hunger or head hunger are used by God to remind me that I am a humble creation, he is the amazing Provider. I can invite him to use those cues to cause me to pray for others, for me to be free from the hold of anything that isn’t from Him. I in no way condone justifying fasting as a way to lose weight as I believe this is very contrary to God’s heart on this issue. That is self-centered and not for God’s glory.
Even when I am not fasting, I can take what I learn during a fast. The “bond” that food has had on me previously, it didn’t have during a fast…so apply that same principle during non-fast days…no food outside of 0 and 5 (hunger and satisfaction). If it calls, I am “fasting”…and turn it into prayer and worship like I do when God has called me to fast for a set period of time.
NOTE: If you struggle with anorexia at all, please DO NOT take this as justification for refusing to submit this struggle to the Lord. Refusing to eat what your body needs to sustain your life is OUT OF GOD’S WILL just as OVEREATING is out of God’s will. Please allow Him to do His work in you. There is no condemnation for you, but neither is there rational godly reason to withold food from your body and to call it a godly fast.
God used TLT to help me to begin to be able to fast for *godly* reasons. This was a major miracle because while I had walked in relative freedom for over a year with regard to eating too much food, I still felt fear about fasting. God used TLT to challenge me to a new level of trust (and I know he wants me to revisit that, as I have gotten some distance from that work he did in me…). In fact, I know that it is no “accident” that I am looking at this lesson now. 🙂
So, hopefully with all those disclaimers and caveats aside… 🙂 Let’s see what TLT teaches in Day 4 about fasting. Truthfully, I can’t do the lesson justice here. It is powerful and encouraging! So here is just a taste of it…
The focus passage for the lesson is Isaiah 58:6-11. I urge you to look it up in your bible. The lesson brings up some principles that come from this passage and Mike Cleveland, the author of TLT, does a good job explaining this:
* Fasting should be freeing!!!
* Fasting should be healing!!!
* Fasting should be SATISFYING!!! (Interesting, isn’t it, how giving up food can actually BE and should be for godly reasons…satisfying? :-))
Additionally, while fasting, I am to:
* worship
* pray
* confess
* listen to the Lord
NOT HOP ON AND OFF THE SCALE!!!!!! 🙂 Ok? 🙂
Other “nots:”
* I am not to be grouchy
* I am not to tell anyone else I am fasting
* I am not to act like a victim or martyr about it. If I do, perhaps I am not fasting for godly reasons!
On page 11 of the workbook, I read, “Fasting with a right attitude is given to us by God as a way of breaking sin’s power, and freeing us from the control of lust and overeating.”
Yes! Fasting is a GIFT from the Lord to me!
My short little summary of Day 4 on fasting from my journal is:
Fasting can enable sin’s power to be broken and free me from my lust. It can bring freedom, healing, and satisfaction!
Application: What will I do with the idea of a godly fast in my life? Throughout scripture I see God’s people fasting to humble themselves…what will I do to follow God in this? Even Jesus fasted…Am I willing to consider even praying about if/when God would call me to do this? To give up even my “necessary food” for a meal or a day? If I am unwilling even to ask God about this…why? (In fact, as I edit this post at 5:50am California time on Election Day…I wonder a LOT about this…hmm…)
I would welcome hearing from those of you who have learned something specific through godly fasting. We can encourage one another!
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 2, 2008 | Blog
I wanted to preface this day of TLT with yesterday’s post because I know that many of us have been through TLT or TW a million times and struggle with physical “results”…and some of us may even understand that this is not about food, eating or my body, but about something deeper and still not see “results” in our behavior, values, heart, walks with Christ.
I do NOT want anything in my blog or that I say anywhere to bring about condemnation. So, if you have gone through TLT before and are reminded “Victory is Here at Last!” was day 3’s title, you might end up feeling a spirit of condemnation.
Reject it, dear One!!! (Sorry, the “Dear One” just slipped out :-)…I know it is a Beth Moore-ism, but it does actually come from my heart…you *are* dear to me, you out there in blog land!)
Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. So please shake it off. Further, it says in Romans 5:8 that God demonstrated his own love for you in this…that WHILE you were yet sinning, Jesus died for you. Not once you had your act together…but WHILE you were yet sinning.
So, please don’t allow the enemy to take you captive with a spirit of condemnation.
How well I know the temptation to do that. Yesterday, for example, I had the wonderful privilege of sharing with a Thin Within group. I am so thankful (and baffled) to get to be used of God in any way…but somehow, the rest of the day was a mindless blur of “am I hungry? I think I am hungry? Am I hungry now? Should I eat? I will eat so I can get rid of the wondering…” and eating in response to all of that. I don’t really understand it. But I know that I struggled with feelings of condemnation… “How could I possibly have shared with a group by morning about things that have changed my life so deeply, yet by 2pm act like one unchanged? What kind of hypocrite am I?”
Join me in rejecting such thoughts. Condemnation isn’t from the Lord to us. God’s Word says in John 3 that God sent his son into the world NOT to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. God’s Word reminds me that it is God’s kindness that leads me to genuine repentance…not condemnation.
It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t confess, but 1 John 1:9 says that if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse me of ALL unrighteousness!
So that said, I will share some thoughts on Day 3 of TLT–again, I recommend this for personal study from the printed workbook. 🙂
On page 8 of the workbook, the question was asked, “Is there a way to be satisfied in Christ and know that we will never return to the old ways of using food in an attempt to satisfy the heart?”
I have to say…this was the key question that has been plaguing me lately. Although I have been at this weight now for just over a year–I know that the passions of my heart were more committed to honoring God at other parts of this journey. That concerns me. I mean, I actually see the same heart that caused me to turn to food for just about everything…well, it doesn’t seem as changed as it should be by now…I want to turn to Christ for satisfaction in everything. No matter what happens. Even when I share emotionally with others and feel pain again…even when my husband travels and worry begins to assault me that this time he may not return safely…even when my daughter surprises me with a self-centered response to a mild request for help…even when my horse acts like none of the years of working together to form a solid, safe partnership have happened (and all the work that has entailed) and it all seems to amount to NOTHING…even when I visit with my mother…I want CHRIST ALONE TO BE MY SATISFACTION. I want HIM to be my ROCK. I want to turn to HIM for peace, for comfort…to be my all.
I have so much yet to learn. Truly…THAT is what this is all about.
So what if I have been at my “naturally thin size” for a year?
Someday, I hope to be able to say, “For a year, I have had a heart that turns to God for satisfaction…” That is what I want for the rest of my life. I want to pant for the Lord like the deer does for streams of water…I want to know what the psalmist meant…KNOW it because I live it…when he said, “NOTHING on earth has anything that cuts it for me, God!”
When I read in Day 3 these words I felt exposed again! Here they are…although refering to a “fad diet” and weight lost on it, I really do think it applies to me:
“…we often think that we have solved the problem. But in reality we may have just hidden it. We can now think ‘No one knows because I am thin.’ The truth is that we need to be fat on Jesus.” (page 9 The Lord’s Table)
I SO don’t want to be a fraud. I SO don’t want to show up to speak or encourage a Thin Within group, for instance, and have them look at my outward appearance and assume that I am not in the trenches. I SO want to be real…and I so want my REAL to be wholly devoted to the Lord.
I thought I wanted THIN so badly. Now that I have been THIN for a year, I see I want HOLY so much more. I want these lusts of my flesh GONE. I want to yearn for the LORD. I want to turn to HIM in my need.
Jeremiah 15:16 says “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.”
I want to delight in the truth of God and His Word. I want to genuinely feel that His Word and time in His presence, focusing on HIM, is so much more enjoyable and satisfying than anything else could be…including eating the most wonderful food (even 0 to 5 for that matter!).
Anyhow, my summary of Day 3s teaching is this: God WILL satisfy. Cultivate a habit of going to him ALL the time through prayer and His Word. As I make this apart of my life throughout the day, I will know permanent change and victory!
Application: What will I do today to assure that I turn to the Lord when I need satisfaction?
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 2, 2008 | Blog
Do you ever wonder about why you have heard the message about freedom in your eating, freedom from being tormented about your body and all those things that you struggle with…why you KNOW stuff and feel STRONGLY that “Yes! This is the truth! I believe! I will do it!” and then still walk in defeat? Still don’t quite seem to flesh the thing out?
So many I talk with about Thin Within experience this. I know I did for years. Probably at least 6 years before things “clicked” I knew…really KNEW the truths that God intended for my freedom. Yet it took until 2006 for me to begin to walk in freedom.
Why is that? Why do we embrace it and believe it and then…don’t experience in our reality what God’s Word says we will?
In my Stepping Up study (by Beth Moore), she shares something really profound on page 81. She shares about how she and her husband went to Angola to do some relief work and how they were trying to take in the sights and sounds and smells of living death…starvation, malnutrition…rampant and overwhelming. A friend shared with them that one of the saddest things is that when seed is brought in to plant and harvest, the people of the villages respond to it by EATING THE SEED instead of sowing the seed. She shares how she couldn’t get this thought out of her head and realized that God answered the question above…that some of us eat the seed of God’s word. We are starving and ravenous…we see it as the truth and good and wonderful…and take it in as temporary satisfaction for our “stomachs” if you will. Instead of working it and working it and waiting and waiting….sowing the seed of God’s Word in our lives.
I know what she is talking about because I have done this precise thing. All that time I wrote with the Hallidays, had daily contact and help and support–had to basically write her God-given thoughts on the page for publishing…I “knew” it…I was “eating” that seed…but I wasn’t working it into the soil of my life.
It takes time. And we want instant results, instant gratification…So, if we don’t see results that are measurable (the bathroom scale often enough), we toss it out…we have eaten the seed instead of sown it.
It takes work. It takes faith. It takes belief…God can do these things in us. It requires patience and perseverance…we wait on Him to do it, yet somehow walk with him, get in the soil and do some dirty “work” in our hearts along with him…
If we don’t, we are like those starving people in Angola. Their need would be provided for much better in the long term if they would SOW the seed instead of eating it…Starving, the don’t know how to trust. How like that I am.
Lord help me not just to eat the seed of your Word and have the temporary “satisfaction” of a full belly. But help me, instead, to sow the seed into my life, to be willing to work it, trust, see the thing through…and experience the harvest that you intend the seed to bring. In the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 1, 2008 | Blog
How interesting. I looked at my entry from last year at this time. You will find it here.
It has begun…HOLIDAY FRENZY! 🙂
Even early in October, Sam’s Club was hauling out Christmas decorations and wrappings, suggested packaged items for gift giving. OH MY! It is that time of year again!
This time of year can be wonderful and horrible! I am just sure that God didn’t create snack size Milky Way bar morsels in the “Family Pack” size to TORMENT ME! How about you? How did you fare through this past week with candy abounding?
And this is only the beginning! The HOLY days are upon us! I hope I can remember they are HOLY days…and not justifications for me to indulge my flesh!
I have to laugh. This year, I did NOT buy one single solitary bag of candy. HUGE VICTORY! I didn’t even think about it! This is proof that God has been at work because left to my own devices I would do what I have done almost every other year!!!!
For instance, two years ago, I justified having a few bags of candy in the house because “What if there was a trick or treater at the door and I had no candy?” Never mind that we had gone the entire previous 4 years without a SINGLE knock on the door! I simply had to have the candy “for the trick or treaters.” HA!
I shared this with my accountability partner….that two years ago I kept dipping into it…quoting myself truisms about being free in Christ and so on…the fact is, all things are permissible, YES, but not all things are beneficial! How many 0 to 5 meals could I REALLY justify with “Friendly Size” Butter fingers as the main course? 🙂
When I realized that I could not stare down the candy and come out the winner, I made a beeline for the toilet…to throw it away! It didn’t even occur to me that it might clog things up! I just knew that if I put it in the trash at home, I would, at some point, if my past record is any indicator, plunge headlong into the garbage can to retrieve it at some point…and eat it anyhow! Have you ever done that? So have I…many times. What is so awful is that then the family thinks how noble and good I am for throwing it away…they never saw me retrieve it from the trash! I would sneak it into the bathroom and eat it there!!!! So two years ago, I had to had to had to throw it down the toilet! VICTORY!
Last year, I was tempted to buy it, but said no to the flesh. YAY! WE DO NOT GET ANY TRICK OR TREATERS! 🙂
And it is with humility that I say that this year, I didn’t even think of Halloween candy until my accountability partner and I were talking about it in email. God has done a HUGE work in me! To take me from what I was to what he is doing in me now! THANK YOU, Lord!
It is interesting to note other contrasts between last years post on October 31st and this year. The horse I was worrying about then and whether or not I should have him put down…well, this is us two days ago:
He is in training at my trainer’s place. He has been doing so well! Yes, winters are hard…and this one may be no exception, but this year, I have inquired about the two of us getting involved and volunteering with some therapeutic riding organizations. I can’t wait to see what happens! We have gotten some favorable responses so far. If we can do that all winter long, keeping him a bit active, maybe he won’t be so miserable and arthritic.
Last year in the post, I lamented about Daniel being such a liar and how worried I was about his future. Daniel has been transformed! He is confesssing sin, praying incredibly authentic prayers, reading the word, asking forgiveness of those he has wronged…even admitting when he hasn’t been truthful (and typically these are so mild that it is astonishing given how calloused his heart used to be!). God has been doing some AMAZING works in my life over the past year.
I PRAISE YOU, LORD!
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 31, 2008 | Blog
So glad to have heard from some of you about your experiences with TLT online program, including the one person who shared with joy about her experience. I do, however, continue to feel strongly that the best approach for most of us will be the printed workbook.
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II wish I had posted about Day 2 at the time that I was going through it because it was one of those days where God was on a theme with me. I did write about it in my journal (not online). I was in a lesson of my Beth Moore study, A Woman’s Heart God’s Dwelling Place and it dovetailed so beautifully with this particular day’s teaching in TLT workbook.
The title of TLT Day 2 is “Desire of the Heart — Fullness and Satisfaction.” Really, in my entire journey…which I have called my “Thin Within Journey,” the teaching in this day of TLT has been vital. If a person can understand this truth, they can truly be on their way toward experiencing the freedom that Christ purchased for us.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men. There is a God-shaped hole that only God can fill. Yet we continue through our lives searching and stuffing different things in this hole. They never quite cut it so we continue the quest. Of course, actually allowing God to fill the hole that only he can fill requires humility.
Anyhow, this is something God showed me years ago, thankfully, yet bringing it home in my own life, actually fleshing it out…well, that is definitely another story. Yesterday was a good example of this. I was extremely emotional for a variety of reasons (none of which were hormonal). Add to that I ended up in physical pain (minor compared to many people). I was weak and vulnerable. I knew that my heart was empty and needed filling but I refused to bow! I refused to go to the living water, to the bread of life…I dug in my heels and acted like “What’s the point?”
I confess this now…and truthfully, food had a great lure for me yesterday that I don’t often experience. It is one reason why I know that I haven’t “arrived” by any stretch of the imagination. I still struggle, because if I had had my way I would have been on an eating fest all of yesterday.
Day 2 of TLT speaks to this tendency to try to quell the tide of emptiness with anything other than the Lord. In my journal, I summarized Day 2 this way:
My heart longs to experience fullness and satisfaction. The God-shaped hole needs to be filled with God alone. Food won’t do it–my glory (praises of people and accomplishments that I am proud of) won’t do it. God alone will do it. This is why I must be prayerful. Apart from inviting Him to satisfy me, I will continue to experience that emptiness.
Practically Speaking: In moments where I am intensely aware of my emptiness, do I choose to turn to the only one who can fill me? Or do I turn elsewhere?
