A popular Chris Tomlin song a few years back sang “All of you is more than enough for, all of me, for every thirst and every need, you satisfy me with your love and all I have in you, is more than enough…”
Above is a video from Tangle (a Christian video community) in case you want to hear it.
This song popped into my head this morning, though…probably because I have been living as if it is NOT true. I have gone about three MILES backwards…not just three *steps* in my walk with God. It is odd, too, as I feel a greater closeness to Him in so many ways than I have ever before…yet my emotions are running away with me. Sometimes these emotions even feel like how *he* feels about things. I don’t know how to explain it…well, an example might be when something was done by a group of well-meaning folks at church, as I prayed about it, I felt a sudden overwhelming surge of heart-ache. In prayer, I asked God if this was *HIS* heart about it…and I sensed it was. What I should do with this is give it back to Him through praise and worship…instead, I internalize it or do something warped with it and end up feeling like I want to “numb” myself to it again…like long ago when I did this with all my emotions with food.
So, there I am again, grasping at something to quell the tide…a quick fix, a temporary solution…whether it is my own emotions run rampant, a situation that I feel powerless about, or whatever it may be, I seem to be going after the ungodly solutions…This is SIN. This isn’t justifiable.
Chapter 26 speaks in the Thin Within book speaks about this tendency to grasp at temporary gratification instead of that which brings fulfillment and deep soul satisfaction. I am in a place right now where it is crucial that I have boundaries in place and use discernment to scrutinize everything, it seems. I know that my presence on the search team for a lead pastor likely puts me in the enemy’s sites…that he may want to take me down in some way. Even apart from any enemy assault, I have my flesh which has been trained in recent months away from the path of obedience. It is time to get back to the basics….that God alone satisfies. He alone is the answer for me, for this ache….
The Lord alone can satisfy the emptiness in our souls and the needs for which our hearts yearn….Christ is sufficient. He is more than enough. Thin Within, page 276
Trying to satisfy our God-given heart hunger with things of this world, with anything other than God is meaningless. Thin Within, page 276
We can remain in a place of heart and soul satisfaction when we surrender our will, mind, emotions, unmet needs, and our bodies to our Heavenly Father. Thin Within, page 278
Earlier in the Thin Within book by Arthur and Judy Hallidays (I think it is chapter 18), the authors show us the value and benefit of establishing godly boundaries. Boundaries are vital in our walks in our “flesh suits” here on earth! We establish boundaries…sometimes to say NO to ourselves about something that we know is outside of God’s plan for us. Sometimes it is a boundary about where we will not let our feet take us, knowing–again–that God’s will is for us not to go there if we want to continue to remain steadfast and firm in the Lord.
Sometimes, during our journey to surrender our food, eating, images of our bodies, idolatry of self to the Lord, we may have to establish pretty stringent boundaries for ourselves initially. For instance, going to a buffet can derail us. If we know that we are at a weaker place in our walks with the Lord, we may want to avoid buffets all together for a season. This is a godly boundary. Or parties. Or ice cream shops. These may be godly boundaries that we have established because we know that we currently can’t cope with the temptation to eat within the 0 to 5 boundary God has given us if we are there.
As we continue on our journey, however, we may feel his leading to allow us to broaden our godly boundaries. The buffet line may not be the temptation it once was…we may now feel the freedom to go to a buffet, but establish a new boundary–that of only going once through the buffet line, knowing that this is a godly boundary for where we currently find ourselves.
It is true, however, that sometimes we take 4 steps forward and grow and then find ourselves suddenly stepping back 3 steps. I am in that place right now. Some huge emotional hits have happened and I know that, right now, going to Chinese buffet (something that has been a favorite for me after church) would be to court disaster for godly eating. I am in a place of feeling sorry for myself 🙁 (Just being honest….) and I know when I feel this way, I still can tend to head for food for solace. (I hate to admit this…and, frankly, I was “past” it for a long time, but see that I am back square in the middle of this tendency now…)
Anyhow, all that to say that as we continue to grow in the Lord and walk this path, we prayerfully ask God, “Where should the boundary markers be NOW, Lord? What can I handle without giving in to my flesh? What should I protect myself from, Lord?”
This past week I was at the Christian book store and I found myself very tempted to buy a bible study guide that is a companion guide for a popular Christian weight loss program. I reasoned “I just want the bible study…and it might be beneficial to giving me the ‘kick in the pants’ I need…” As I flipped through the booklet, however, I saw that it had not only what looked like a great bible study, but that it also included recipes and charts and graphs for tracking exercise minutes and calories…For a brief moment I reasoned, “I can just do the bible study…I don’t need to USE those charts and recipes.” A Holy Spirit alarm went off inside reminding me that a boundary was about to be violated…for ME, I have to have to have to keep away from things that are throwbacks to my dieting days. This bible study book would have been that…I could have easily gotten ensnared again in regimentation and legalism of my dieting past.
As if to drive that point home, I found one of my old journals (20 years old!) when I was rummaging around looking for a book yesterday for my daughter down in the cellar where we store things. I was reminded of just how in bondage I was…even while studying the scriptures and praying the stuff through. I worked harder at weight loss during that time, but stayed stuck at the same weight (bigger than I am now) and lamented in the pages that I was stuck and couldn’t break free…all the while focusing on food and exercise to “save me” (as evidenced by what I wrote on the page…).
So, I am reminded that godly boundaries for me have, indeed, fallen in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6).
I want to be circumspect and always allow the Lord to establish where boundaries should be right now–THIS day–in my life. Given my current vulnerability, I know that the boundaries have to be brought in, be a little tighter, closer in…Give me a long leash right now, and I am likely to hang myself.
But I know that this is just a season. 🙂
What about for you? Do you have godly boundaries? Have you had them for a while? Is it time for you to broaden them? Is it time for you to have new, more “close in” ones? Or, can you now move to being able to experience the joy in environments that you have felt God leading you to call off limits previously? Is he inviting you to step out in faith?
Are you perhaps, more like me, finding that this is a season of life where you need to stay closer to safety? What godly boundaries is God calling you to have for now?
Ever onward into chapter 24 of Thin Within by Arthur and Judy Halliday!
I found this chapter encouraging and very practical. I don’t know about you, but I have found myself challenged in a new way to maintain my resolve to godly boundaries that will help me to accomplish the godly goals that God moved me to establish at the beginning of June.
During the past week, I have found myself being challenged emotionally and spiritually from sources that I had thought I never would. It is disheartening, disquieting and extremely challenging in a new way.
God wants me to cling to him, cling to him, cling to him. In humility, I do that. When I don’t cling to him, it is because I have allowed pride to rise up in me to say “I know best how to handle this!” or “I deserve to be comforted!” or some such malarkey! God is growing me to see how subtly pride can continue to filter into my responses to people and situations.
I am reminded by the authors that:
…the most effective forming and shaping of our character takes place during times of suffering.Thin Within, page 254
At least I am encouraged that my character must really be getting “shaped and formed” right now! LOL! sigh…
I love the reminder that it isn’t my job to release weight. Instead, it is my responsibility to be in relationship with God and to seek His guidance. (page 258).
As I make GOD my priority, drawing close to Him, praising, thanking, giving gratitude to Him, as I continue to pursue a heart of constant forgiveness (something I have an opportunity to do lately), then I am fulfilling that to which HE calls. HE will do the rest! The pressure is off!
If you are doing the study with us, I hope that you did the activity on pages 260-261. This is where the rubber hits the road! I have included as some of my action steps that I will incorporate an additional “check in with God” time mid-afternoon. My morning quiet times always nourish and focus me on the Lord, but by mid-day, I am off track, my thinking is skewed and I have my shorts in a bunch about something. :-/ So, maybe if I just mentally “start my day” about 2pm with a quiet time and a shower 🙂 I will have the mercies that are new every day begin again about the time I usually start falling to pieces.
Anyhow, I plan to give that a try. I know it has helped me in the past. If nothing else, I will take some time to refocus. To fix my eyes on Jesus…
How about you? What action steps are you going to take to really work toward change? What adjustments to your godly goals do you feel the Lord leading you to make? What babysteps can you take to get there within the next couple of weeks?
Let’s not give up! He is doing a work in our character. Let’s welcome that. Let’s take on our responsibility to connect with God, to obey Him, to repent when necessary and to fix our eyes on Him…to maintain our relationship with the Lover of our Souls. We can leave the rest to Him to take care of! 🙂
Hi, everyone! This week I sure enjoyed using the tools in chapters 22 and 23. Did you? I love that I was reminded of valuable, rich ways of growing in my walk with the Lord by personalizing scripture, by praying scripture and the other suggestions for strengthening my belief system. Loved that and will continue to use these tools!
This week, let’s go for it and attempt to complete chapters 24, 25, and 26. This will leave us with one more week, when we will complete the book…but don’t rush ahead yet! I hope you will stick with us this week and really work through this material.
Chapter 24 will really challenge us to see what we are willing to do in order to accomplish the goals that we felt God called us to set earlier on in our study. I hope you will prayerfully read, study, and do the work in this chapter. It is bound to exhort us…maybe even rebuke us a bit, but God is faithful and will strengthen us. His Word says that He has given us everything we need for life and godliness!
Chapter 25 is a great chapter to help us to plan strategies for how we can keep our godly boundaries in difficult circumstances. Having an “advance battle plan” can really make all the difference in the world!
Chapter 26 will also spur us to evaluate the difference between godly satisfaction and more fleshly gratification.
Continue to praise God for His attributes! Share any gratitudes that you may want to with us here at this blog in the comments or let us know where to find your blog online where you tell about what God is doing!
Let’s recommit to eating when we are hungry (only), stopping when we are no longer hungry and going to God whenever we are drawn to food at any other time!
(For those continuing on in the study or who use this blog to guide their study in future months, please note the previous entry (posted earlier today) has the next assignment.
I want to be sure I don’t forget to highlight some things in chapter 21 that have stood out for me as I have gone through this material this time.
We pray that you have surrendered to the Lord your heartache and pain, trusting that in His sovereignty He will redeem it. Truly it is only in knowing with confidence that He is sovereign and good that we can release our minds, our emotions, our wills, and our unmet needs to Him. Thin Within, page 221.
This is why it helps so much, as we go through this material, to focus on GOD, not on ourselves, our “successes” or our “failures.” As we get to know what God is really like and as we learn how He interacts with us and what He says about us, we see that He is amazing, and good and wonderful, compassionate, loving, patient…and the list goes on and on. THIS is a God that I can trust! THIS is a God I can believe for my healing.
When my focus is on me, my food, my weight (if I am losing or not), my clothes…and on and on–ME–I miss it. I miss seeing how awesome HE is and that I can release my longing for food to Him and trust that He will show up and be enough. If I wait long enough, he will NOT disappoint. But if I don’t ever get to know him, I won’t believe or trust him and food will continue to be an overwhelming lure to comfort my heart. Food will continue to seem preferable to God because I never took the time to get to know Him. If I know Him, I will long for HIM and want to be with HIM. I won’t want anything to stand in the way of fellowship with Him.
I have a friend who has been an incredible, VIVID example of this. She began wanting to dare to trust God that He would be sufficient in her emptiness if she didn’t keep grabbing for food. The cool thing is, as she has taken time to really get to know Him in a new way, to pray, to journal, to read her bible during her “waiting” times, she has seen Him as He is. Now this friend of mine refuses to let ANYTHING stand between her and the Lord she has been seeing and knowing in a new way. Strongholds are being demolished right and left. HUGE ones! Things she took for granted for years as being fixtures in her life–needed–she is now releasing one by one. It is amazing to see…and I am just positive that it is because she sees God in a new light. She dares to trust him with just one more thing to which she has been clinging.
As you can see, [this] has been about much more than your physical “tent” or body. Truly, if you were to find yourself at the end of [this study] smaller in size, yet without the peace, joy, and freedom we have been pursuing, it would all be in vain.Thin Within, page 221.
I know we want to be smaller. I know we want to be “adorable” and “cute” and wear clothes from the normal stores and swim without being scary, get on an airplane without an extender and so on…but you could be smaller and still never get the most important things…the eternal things. The things that really matter. We have all dieted before and we know how to lose weight. But do we know how to live in freedom? That is what the authors want to be sure we understand…that this journey in the way they present it is about living in freedom!
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. – Galatians 5:1
We don’t want to become yoked again to a yoke of slavery, so if we are still focusing on the physical, let’s reject that! Let’s get our eyes on the Lord for the rest of our lives (I almost said for the rest of this study, but we don’t EVER want that to change!). HE is worthy of our focus, our obsession, our joy!
Hi, everyone. I will be following this entry with one about the chapter from last week, so that is why there are two posts today.
This week, please read and complete chapter 22 and chapter 23. These are on pages 232 – 253.
I want to give a full week to these two chapters because they actually walk you through some time in God’s Word and other strategies for learning, believing and proclaiming truth.
If you finish these two chapters before the week is up, feel free to either go back to another chapter you may have glossed over too quickly or go ahead to the next or use the suggestions in chapters 22 and 23 to create your own time with the Lord. For instance, personalize other scriptures in your journal. I would love to see what you have done here. This is where application can be such fun and truly revolutionize our lives!
Continue with gratitude statements written out in your journal or in a blog and let us know the link for the blog if you have one! Mine is here.
Respond here at the blog if you like to these questions:
1.) Are you consistent in being at a 0 before you eat? 2.) Have you found 5 consistently? 3.) What are your biggest hindrances if not? 4.) Are you rejoicing in moments captured for Christ (like the marble jar illustration)? 5.) What physical, emotional, and spiritual changes have you experienced in the last couple of months?
Chapter 21 of Thin Within opens with some statements that I don’t want to blow by. In fact, I want to ask each of us, me included, “Have you…?”
The opening page of chapter 21 says we have:
Purposed to fix our eyes on Jesus
Cast off the sin that entangles
shook off the fetters of unforgiveness
emerged victorious
allowed his river to wash over our parched hearts
torn down any thoughts that have been raised up against the knowledge of God
surrendered our heartache and pain
trusted that in His sovereignty He will redeem what has happened in my past
But have we? I don’t want to blow by these things.
Certainly, if we have diligently applied ourselves to the teaching presented in the pages of this book, we have! But, perhaps you are doing a “drive by” with the material…sort of just “scoping things out.” If that is the case, I urge you to take the time you NEED to really DO this. Maybe that will mean going back over it again completely. I urge you to do what it takes to allow this material to come home right where you live!
Beg God to make you willing to be made willing and cling to the hem of his robe until he does this in you. He wants to! He is all for your healing and maturity. Christ came to give us abundant life–not to enable us to “just survive the day.” Let’s not settle for anything less than HIS best!
Because I am so convinced we shouldn’t rush this process, but by nature of an online study we sort of are anyhow, I am not going to hash through the rest of this chapter today. I want to give any of you time who need it, the time it takes to be still and know that God is God. To wait on Him. He says that if you wait on the Lord, you will renew your strength, you will run and not grow weary, walk and not faint. You will experience HIS strength rising.
If you need more time, you can always sit for a day a week a MONTH with the material and return to this blog to pick up where you left off with us…Even if you make a comment a year from now here at the blog, I will see it and rejoice…and, if I can, respond.
Remember that it is in our weakness that He is made strong. So be willing to BE weak that His power might flow in and through you.
Today, I could use your prayers. Judy and I are working on new material. Today is my deadline for chapter one and I must be more disciplined and focused. I got a lot done in a short time last night (praise HIS name!), but much is yet ahead. Thank you for any prayers prayed on my behalf.
It is so amazing how God is at work. His timing for this chapter couldn’t have been more perfect.
How can we know that we have forgiveness work to do even if we think “I am good. All is up to date”?
This was the state I was in this past weekend, feeling like I was finally progressing along with some sense of normalcy.
Yet if I were to look at my eating, I would have had to conclude, something still wasn’t right. I see now that I was numbing myself to something and ignoring that…I didn’t want to feel what was there and it was working pretty well. I am not talking about binges of any kind…just that “I will eat what I want (within reason, which sort of justifies the sense that it isn’t so bad…:-/) when I want”…well, when that behavior is going on in my life, I know enough about myself that it is a red flag flying high! PAY ATTENTION!
God had to use other means to get my attention and so I share out of this so maybe you may discover the same.
If you continue to turn to food even though your best intentions are to do otherwise, then you can be pretty sure that you are anesthetizing yourself to something. There is usually a reason. You are NOT a rotten, no good sinner who just doesn’t love God enough (like some of us have believed…oh! THIS IS A LIE FROM SATAN!!!).
If you have an EXTREME reaction to something someone says or does…something that, when you take a step back, sure doesn’t seem as bad as all of that, but there is a truckload of intensity behind how you feel…well, that is another good indicator that there is a root issue that God wants to take His scalpel to via an approach like that in the Thin Within book, chapter 20.
He used a couple of two by fours to point this out to me.
A very close friend said some things to me in an email on Monday and I had a HUGE reaction. I have learned that when I have an almost instinctive sense that I want to run, that I have to stop instead, wait on the Lord and look at what is going on. I need to pick apart what is really going on and ask Him “What is THIS about?” I have to look at if my extreme reaction is really about THIS situation or if it is about another, unresolved situation that this is just building on.
I began to do that.
I felt like my dear friend was trying to control me, like she was throwing mistakes I had made back into my face, like I am not “good enough” (a constant failure), and like she took things I have said as proclaiming judgments about her as a person…something I never intended, but when someone responds to me like that, I feel like I can’t say anything else. It makes it impossible for positive interaction to take place and conflict resolution, it seems. I feel like I am immobilized, so why bother trying? (It is another way I feel controlled and I get quite angry feeling that way. OUCH!)
Then I realized that I have felt this intensely with only a few other people ever in my life…but at the top of that list is my mother.
Interesting, given I saw my mom on Saturday for the first time in a long while and spent a lot of time afterwards on the phone with my older sister processing so many things about our mom and her character or treatment of us. All of the things I listed previously, I feel toward my mother. Honestly, as a result of feeling that way with my mom, I don’t even want to see her these days, justifying my distance in a number of “rational” and “unemotional” ways that keep me from seeing that, at the heart of it is a lack of forgiveness and my desire to “punish” her or something. I have called it, instead, a godly boundary…and certainly, there is a place where a godly boundary should exist, but the lines, for me, had been crossed into something else…
But when I look at it closely, it is clearly unresolved stuff…stuff that I need to forgive my mother for.
Last night it was obvious that, even though I am working through all of this as I go through the material in this chapter on forgiveness, that it is still fresh and triggers are still right there out in the open. My poor daughter asked me the same thing a couple of times yesterday and I just exploded! I felt controlled by her, like she feels that I am not good enough for her as a mom, I felt…well, as you can see, she triggered all of these similar feelings…and it wasn’t her fault!
I have triggers laying around everywhere and I hadn’t realized it. God has used all of this to show me that I have a GREAT deal of SERIOUS unresolved issues in my life–especially relative to my mom. Yesterday, I spent a great deal of time working through a lot of the things I feel about my mom and others in my life in these ways…and I know it will be ongoing work. In fact, I think I have to even look deeper and ask God to show me why I have this reaction to being controlled so much…is it a pride issue? Or is it something else? Perhaps he will show me something else that will enable me to break free from that. It is odd, the very thing that I chafe about–being controlled–is what happens when I react this way. I am being controlled by my hatred of being controlled! YIKES!
If you feel like you explode over the slightest things or are reduced to a pool of tears over the slightest infraction you may want to evaluate what your trigger is and why it is there. I believe that God has used these situations to show me clearly that I need to deal with these things with my Mom.
Another indicator that there is something to deal with is if you know you avoid certain things, topics, or people. That is usually a sure sign that you have a forgiveness issue that God wants you to process. In doing so, you will experience freedom!
Obviously, my friend and I and my daughter and I have had to talk…I over-reacted to the things they said and I needed to ask their forgiveness, certainly. Both of them have admitted their own struggle to grow in releasing control to God…they are people in process, as am I.
If you have a feeling you want to run for the hills when something minor happens…or even something major…that, too, can be an indicator that there is something beneath the surface that you have to take to God for His scrutiny, His cleansing…and to choose to forgive.
All of this can affect my eating. It can be really subtle. Just nibbling on things here and there throughout the day or a bit more than I need at a meal or eating when I am not at a 0…or drinking more diet soda on a day than usual (“I deserve this special treat” mentality is a dead giveaway…).
Forgiveness can really take care of this SO effectively. And the other thing that can make a HUGE difference is choosing to practice gratitude. Gratitude makes a huge difference as well.
When I truly have nothing left unresolved, when I have done all the forgiveness work that God has called me to, when I have been intentional about praising Him for his attributes and the way He interacts with me, when I have practiced gratitude, I can honestly say that I don’t find sin as appealing…or even things that I may not call blatant sin, but that I know are not best.
When all is dealt with, I can live authentically in this present moment, alive to God and what HE wants. It is painful, but so worth it.
Wow…no matter how often I go through this material, God always brings it home in a new way.
I spent a lot of time going through chapter 20 and the things God revealed to me are HUGE. I want to, again, encourage all of us to take as long as it takes to prayerfully wade through what is there.
God is faithful and he will show us blessings for being willing to do so! I know it! I have experienced it!
My prayers are with each of you as you specifically, completely go through the wounds you have in your life, now and in the past, and choose very intentionally to release each offender to God by forgiveness.
I hope you will post here how God uses this experience!
