Check This Out – Paula’s Video Blog!
Hi, folks. Wow…this is a terrific video by a virtual friend, Paula. I hope you find yourself encouraged, challenged and inspired like I do!!!
Sometimes it is good to be VERBOSE!
Sometimes it is good to talk too much. Well, most of the time it isn’t. A fool is known by the abundance of her words…and…better to keep one’s mouth shut and have them wonder if I am a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt…and all of that! LOL!
But when it comes to my most recent descent into “That Place” (what I call living with an attitude and not submitting myself to the Lord in my choices), being a woman of WAY too many words has actually been a good thing.
Why is that?
Well, it seems like no matter where I turn, my own words, used to try to encourage other people, face me. In some ways, they have mocked me…but once I get over that notion (which isn’t what the Lord intends, but IS what Satan intends, of course!), I can receive what I think the LORD wants me to from the words that I have previously prayerfully offered to others. Funny how that is. God is amazing how he can do that.
Hello? Like for instance “Take this moment captive for the Lord!” “Don’t minimize the importance of THIS moment!” “God IS doing a new thing…even now!” and so on. The thing that has been going around in my head the most, it seems is that a moment of indiscretion–even an hour of indiscretion–while I don’t want ANY time that I am not surrendered to the Lord of course…well, even an hour of inappropriate–SINFUL–eating does NOT wipe out a full day of surrendering to the Lord!
In the past, back in the diet days, it sure did. You know, when you allot yourself so many calories each day…like say 1500, it sure seemed as though even if you had resisted the urge to eat all day long, if you “blew it” at night with a hot fudge sundae, then you would write off the entire day and say, “Well, I blew my diet today, I may as well just forget it.” The caloric amount was all that mattered. The heart choice to resist wasn’t valued.
With Thin Within, the HEART is the focus! So if I spend 23 hours taking captive my thoughts for the Lord and surrendering to His tender love, mercy, grace and will, THAT IS HUGE! (I love that 7 or 8 of those are when I am sleeping, but I tell ya…I COUNT THEM! LOL!). If only ONE hour is spent “blowing it”…that is NOTHING in comparison. All those other moments and hours are an investment in a transformed heart and life!
This is the thought that has encouraged me the past few days.
I think this is one reason why what the scale says isn’t the point of this. I know in my heart of hearts if I have lived a surrendered life and honored God with my body, my heart, my mind, my choices. So if the scale is up when I know I have been walking hand in hand with the Lord, then I know it is a quirky thing going on–maybe a test of my faith, in fact. If the scale is down when I know I have been living serving myself and my appetites (not physical hunger, but taste bud hunger or something else), then I can’t delight in that…in a way, this too is a test. Will I allow the scale to bring me a sense of satisfaction when the Lord is calling me to more?
Man-made bathroom scales are tricky things. Weighing every day is NOT a good thing! Like Judy Halliday says (or this is what I remember of what she has said)–if we spent as much time and energy focusing on the God-made hunger scale of eating 0 to 5, eating between the parameters of hunger and satisfaction, instead of the man-made bathroom scale, the extra weight on our body would likely slide right off!
So many things about this approach–Thin Within–dong things the way God directs, are OPPOSITE of what the world would say. The world says we MUST use the man-made bathroom scale to evaluate how we are doing on our “diet.” God says to trust him and hearken to his voice, letting go of any food outside of hunger/satisfaction parameters. He says to trust him that He is at work in our hearts, minds AND our bodies!
The world says we can’t eat this or that! It is “off” the “diet!” We can’t possibly be thin if we eat that! God says, I have made your body reliably…it isn’t the food that is the problem, it is the heart that wants more than the body needs to sustain life!
The world says that if you have an hour of bingeing behavior, then you have ruined the day and you may as well just forget the day and throw all caution to the wind–restart the diet tomorrow. God says observe and correct, take THIS moment captive. Each moment matters…all the moments we spent surrendering can NOT be negated or neutralized by an hour of sin.
I have seen that in the past week or more, that my mind has wandered all over the place and the world is sooooo ready to receive me back. YUCK! I choose to reject the thoughts of the world in this. I choose Christ. I choose freedom.
My Turn to Ask: “What is WRONG with me?”
On the Thin Within forums, often there will be a post from one member or another asking the question, “What is WRONG with me?” Generally, what follows is a lament about how they know that eating more than they need will keep them in a place they don’t want to be–physically, spiritually, emotionally–yet they keep gravitating to the same behaviors of overeating. They are struggling with understanding why they keep sabotaging themselves.
It is my turn to ask this question…so what IS wrong with me? Yes, I know I have a SIN nature. No amount of “obedience” will change that fact…I have, inside of myself, a tendency toward sin, toward rebellion, toward rejecting the ways of God and what I know is best.
BUT…and this is HUGE…I have been given EVERYTHING I need for life and godliness as well. I am equipped.
I wrote just last week about how I had returned to surrendering my eating to the Lord. Now I am back in That Place again of NOT. And with a vengance! I got on the scale today to see how much damage I do in a week (or less) of rebellious choices. It is up 5 or 6 pounds again! Isn’t that amazing? I mean, I literally can “release” or gain 5 pounds in a week’s time. Something is BIZARRE with that!
I do *not* want to live my life on this pendulum.
So what has the issue been this week? Translation: What ever will I blame it on NOW?
I think at the heart of it is this:
“I want to do what I darn well please…PERIOD.”
You see, if someone seems to block my goal…whatever my goal may be…I come out both barrels blazing with an attitude. It can be the horse with his feet. It can be a friend who has hurt me. It can be the clock allowing the hours to pass too quickly. If *I* don’t have *my* way, then I get an attitude and it *always* translates to: “Well, then, if I can’t have my way about *that*, then I WILL have my way about FOOD! SO THERE!”
What a spoiled baby. Seriously…I have very little grace to extend to myself when I look at it this way. “OH GROW UP, Heidi!”
This road we travel as followers of Christ is *about* dying to self. It is about living the crucified life (talk about an oxymoron!). It is about one foot in front of the other, one moment at a time, being willing in the strength God provides (and he provides it, I know) to say NO to self and YES to God. It is about laying myself on the altar and being a LIVING sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2). 
The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He will not have me.
Even as early as Genesis 4 in human history, man was called to CHOOSE God, to CHOOSE to say no to self and no to sin. From Genesis 4:6-7:
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
The imagery of sin “crouching” at the door reminds me of the passage in 1 Peter about Satan being like a prowling lion, seeking someone to devour.
I consider someone *else* though, who is at the door of my life: (Jesus speaking) Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:19,20)
So, sin is at my door, but so is the Lord. Sin desires to have me…to devour me. The Lord desires to fellowship with me. What a contrast.
So what is wrong with me?
I keep throwing the door open to the wrong one. I won’t today. Actually, I will take THIS moment captive for the Lord. THIS moment, I will choose to open the door to my Savior who wants to be present with me and fellowship with me (and *eat* with me!).
Forgiveness is a theme…
Look at this face:
Could YOU be angry, upset, disappointed with this face?
I doubt it.
Today, I needed to trim this boy’s feet. My way of saving $400 a month is by trimming my own horses’ feet. Doc is special. He has been retired for most of the 5 years we have had him, as I bought him quite lame…quite accidentally quite lame, in fact. His story is at this website. (Just a warning…there is more there than most people would EVER want to know!)
Today he decided he had other things to do other than have a pedicure, however. It wasn’t that he was so all out nasty. He wasn’t. He was just sort of passive aggressive. Doing his feet is a big deal. His body is so out of whack. When his feet aren’t quite right, his body goes even further our of whack. Pain can be intensified for him. So I take doing his feet really seriously. I guess more seriously than he does! 🙂
As I sat on my little stool to cradle his front left foot in my lap to rasp off the edges and so forth, he just kept wanting to have his foot for his own plans.
He didn’t want to go anywhere at that moment, really. He just wanted his foot. Period. He was quite convinced that this was the thought we both should go with.
I guess he also knew that an electrical storm was brewing. About ready to rain huge pellets of water down with sound effects of thunder claps to go with it. From my perspective, I needed to make the most of the moments I had with him to get at least two of his four feet trimmed up.
I can’t tell you how frustrated I got. I didn’t get frustrated quickly, mind you. But when every time I would get to shaping his foot he pulled it away, I couldn’t get very far very fast and my back was aching from the endeavor. I just wanted to HELP him.
By the time the rain started and it was clear I had to release him to go pitch the fit that he and his buddies pitch when they get pelted with rain or hail, I was worked into quite the tizzy myself. Not only had I not gotten really to a stopping point, but I had a sore back to show for it and my tools and ME were getting all wet. I had to hurry to cover hay and a million other things that had to happen in order for the hatches to be battened down should a storm really hit and this not be just a passing wet cloud.
Can you see that there wasn’t one shred of gratitude or godly thinking going on?
As I was backing my horse trailer up to its parking place (one more thing I needed to do before the ground got too wet and the truck got stuck), I realized I wanted food and BADLY. I wasn’t hungry and my response to that realization was “SO WHAT. I DON’T CARE. I want it ANYHOW.”
A ha…once again I was in “That Place.”
I hadn’t blogged yet that have released the 5 pounds that I had gained during the week or so that I had been caught in a place of struggling to forgive. Surrendering my will to the Lord it didn’t take long to get it off! YAY!…I had done the forgiveness work and proclaimed God as God in my life again. I am NOT God…and my eating was able to return to his parameters. It was interesting to me how like clockwork it was.
So here I was in That Place again. Angry eating. I just hadn’t eaten yet. So, I asked myself the question…WHO am I angry at? Well, I know this is a ridiculous answer….I was angry at Doc! Yes, the HORSE!!!!!! Even being angry at my HORSES makes me want to eat. Is that not amazing? How sploogied could my thinking possibly be?????
I think we have uncovered a serious character flaw! How ridiculous!
If you think that is ridiculous, how much more so do I feel like a fool telling God that “Ok, Lord, I choose to forgive Doc (the horse) for not letting me trim his feet…and I choose to acknowledge that you are God of the rain, God of the thunder, and God of the horse’s feet, too.”
But it is true. If I find myself wanting food, I do just need (or so it seems) to ask myself or the Lord “Who do I need to forgive?” or, maybe, “Who do I *think* I need to forgive? Who am I angry at?”
Good grief. Poor Doc. He was being a horse sensing the pending storm and I was busy acting like a trap capturing his leg. He knew he needed his leg to run in the storm…he is a prey animal, after all. His instincts say that during a storm is NOT the time to have your legs held on to by some human trying to do a pedicure!
Silly, huh?
May Madness!
While I was back east with my kids–especially the first day of our visit to Washington, D.C., I became very convicted in my heart about how sedentary my kids have been during the years we have homeschooled. I value physical education and activity, so why haven’t I made that a vital part of our homeschool curriculum? Time, primarily. It *is* hard to do all the other subject areas and enrichments (like music) and make time for exercise. BUT…I must.
So, since we had ended two units–one in history and one in science–just before leaving on vacation, I decided upon returning home to make a deal with the kids. I won’t ask them to do science and history (per say) during the month of May IF and this is a big IF, we plunge ourselves headlong into a month of family fitness. Not a huge diehard program, but of daily being active in some way and daily making some small little choice in our eating to say no to self.
We would journal each day about how we feel physically, emotionally, spiritually and, at the end of May, evaluate what we would do for June. It is like an experiment. (Of course, Michaela pointed out that a true experiment has only one variable and we are throwing in too many variables for it to be a true experiment…sometimes she is too smart for her own good.)
Additionally, we are reading the Harris boys’ Do Hard Things. This is an amazing book. I am totally motivated! It exposes the Myth of Adolescence and challenges teens to “rebel” against low expectations. Oh my word…I am excited about what my kids may feel led to do as the “Do Hard Things” that God is calling them to do.
This past week, these changes in our homeschool curriculum made life SO much richer for me. I hope for them, as well. I guess technically, we only really did this stuff for a couple of days…starting May 1.
You may wonder how I would feel about logging and journaling my own physical activity with the kids and/or doing a regular exercise program of some sort, given my past and how I have avoided returning to obsession by avoiding any kind of regular program at all.
God brought something important home to my heart this past week. And now it is time to see if I can follow His prompting. Of course I can! He pointed out in my spirit that I enjoy freedom with my eating, right? No food is off limits, right? In fact, at Thin Within, we use Colossians 2:20-22 to point out that it is so easy for us to try to control the food to feel righteous when what we need to do is to control the heart. I have not had any difficulty with the concept that I no longer need to control the food. I understand and embrace the fact that my heart must be submitted to the Lord–no food is evil! When I go bonkers with a certain food, it isn’t the food that is an evil “trigger,” but it is proof that my heart is still chained to the food and my heart must be dealt with.
I understand, believe, and live that with food.
Well, what about exercise, logging and journaling and so on? God convicted me that a regular exercise program also is not some great evil I should avoid. By avoiding it, I am controling an external instead of my heart. I must, instead, allow him to teach me how to walk in freedom amidst exercising and logging and journaling. In essence, it is time for me to “grow up” in this a little bit. Besides, while I have always loved exercise, is it possible that my heart is deceiving me…that I really am…dare I say it…lazy…and just don’t want to exercise?
While it *is* true that I don’t want to become dependent on exercise to have a body that I am willing to accept…as I believe that is total captivity (where you live in fear if you don’t have time to exercise, or have a legitimate reason not to or something)…by the same token, God wants to train my heart to cope with those things in life…and that exercise is good for my heart.
I know that I have a very active life compared to most just by nature. Yesterday I exercised three of my horses, for instance! That required quite a bit of *me*. My arms are strong and my back has to do a lot, too (last night it was screaming at me that it had done too much!). But I know that, like my kids, I would *feel* better if I was fitter. If I was able to enjoy mountain biking for instance…When I used to run all the time, I will never forget the first time I tried true mountain biking in Lake Tahoe. I was fit enough that I could do it without having ever done it before. Either pedaling up some hills or getting off and hiking with a bike up hills was no big deal to me because I was fit.
I live in mountain biking mecca. I would LOVE to mountain bike with the kids. It would be great to be *able* to without dying. Yesterday when I was riding Breezy, I saw some guys sailing…I don’t know what you call it…it wasn’t hang gliding, and it wasn’t parasailing…but it was like a parachute…they hiked up the hills and let the sail carry them around…Oh my…it was breathtaking to watch. I want to do that and must be able to hike up those hills to do it. (Which shouldn’t be too tough given my usual routine involves climbing up steep hills with a feed bucket full of hay spreading it in the hillside forest for the horses! LOL!).
Anyhow, this month will be a training time for me…not just physically, but spiritually–that I don’t return to captivity–obsession. We have a 2 week free pass to a gym that we used to be members to. We will enjoy using that, too, after everyone is totally well. Maybe that will be our last two weeks of May or maybe I will save it for the first two weeks in June! We have to drive 45 minutes to use it, so the gas costs are expensive. The kids and I have enjoyed playing racquetball there before. Talk about a workout!
All for now!
Believe
Yesterday, I felt like while I could still work myself up into a lather when a loving friend, having read yesterday’s blog entry (you know who you are!), asked me about how I was doing…In spite of that, I nevertheless, know that I *have* released much of this to the Lord. Much of the bitterness and anger has ebbed back into the original feeling…pain. God has taught me that I can feel that and let HIM comfort me. His comfort is much more effective than food, too!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives,
so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
– 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
As I do that, I am able to ask him “Lord, what am I to do and be in response to these things?” “What would you have me to learn about myself and about you through this misunderstanding?” “Is there any way in which the way I was misunderstood so often through this trial …well…is that a mirror as to what *you* actually see in me, Lord?” “What do I need to change?”
Yesterday, I felt a willingness to give my eating to the Lord. It wasn’t perfect, no. But I made positive God-honoring choices most of the day. I rejoice in that. Not because of the eating, food and so on, but because of what it means is happening in my heart again.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,
but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…
Romans 14:17
I am so thankful that he doesn’t judge me or condemn me based on my eating. He nudges me, he comforts me, he convicts my heart, but because Jesus alone is sufficient for my salvation, my outward acts are simply an expression in response to so great a salvation!
I am thankful that Ephesians 1:3-5 is true – even before I was born and cared a wit for God!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in the heavenly realms
with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world
to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love he predestined us to be adopted
as his sons through Jesus Christ,
in accordance with his pleasure and will—
And isn’t it amazing that it gave HIM pleasure to choose us? That is an amazing thought. I love Ephesians 1. I can’t condemn myself or remain in shame when I read that chapter of the bible and God gently asks: “Yes, child, but do you BELIEVE me? Do you BELIEVE what I say about YOU is true?”
During the week or two or three that I had my tantrum, I not only gained physical weight, but I took on a truckload of shame and self-condemnation. Satan stood laughing and accusing, “See! I TOLD you you wouldn’t keep it off! What kind of teacher are you, teaching the women one thing in your Thin Within class and doing another! HA! By the time YOU get to the Thin Within retreat in June, you will be 30 pounds heavier! HA! Some ‘testimony’ YOU will be!”
And the Lord gently reminds me of all these things that scripture says. It isn’t about the food. It is about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is about the fact that YES, he IS doing a new thing–EVEN NOW! I have NEVER been at this place before and He is yet at work! I praise you, Lord!
Today…all His mercies are new again. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? I am so thankful that he doesn’t carry my mistakes and failings forward. He wipes the slate clean with his grace.
Your Mercies Are New Every Morning
Have you ever heard the song by Nicole Nordeman called “Mercies New?” That song was going through my mind this morning. I don’t really know much of it except the chorus, but the chorus goes like this:
Your mercies are new every morning
So let me wake with the dawn
When the music is through or so it seems to be
Let me sing a new song, old things gone
Every day it’s true,
You make all Your mercies new
I planned yesterday to finally, FINALLY go on a horse ride again. It has been at least three weeks, what with all the loose ends I was working on before leaving for our vacation and then being gone for 8 days. So, last night I hooked up the horse trailer, set out my riding clothes and set the alarm for a 5am wake up. The horses could eat, I could have my quiet time and still arrive at the trail head by 7am so I could get home by 9am. Since Breezy, my most reliable “steady-headed” mount, is likely to be out of shape after such a long lay off, I figured an hour to hour and a half ride would be long enough for him.
I literally woke with the dawn…before, in fact.
Even before I got out to the trail with Breezy I could feel the ever-so-slight changes in my heart–the edge in my spirit being sanded away by the Spirit of God.
What edge? Hmm….Well, you see, in spite of all my spouting off here and elsewhere of how “gratitude changes things,” or “we must deny self,” and whatever else, in between making lo-o-o-ong lists of things I am thankful for my “Gratitude Blog” and shooting off my mouth about it, I have nevertheless been allowing anger and resentment–bitterness–to build in my life. This always always always results in disordered eating for me.
This is the first time since November of 2006 that I have felt so MUCH yuck in my life that I haven’t dealt with as it comes up. A lot of new stuff cropped up within the past couple of weeks, I guess. I keep shoving it down, shoving it down. And…numbing with food, too, I think. I knew that a new situation and the woundings I have felt through it had to be offered to the Lord. Yesterday, on the hour long drive to a friend’s house, the Lord and I went through it in a lot of detail…and I prayed and chose to forgive…but it isn’t that easy, sometimes. Like a monkey on my back, it clings!
Not only that, but some new challenges with my son have touched off *that* old issue for me, too, (my resentment of his autism). Everything has been festering, I guess. Put these emotional struggles and my resistant heart together with a needy kid at midnight and, well, I woke up early yes…with the dawn, yes…but instead of worshiping God, I was tired, cranky, and doing ANYthing BUT singing gratitude and praises to God.
To add insult to injury, I made myself step on the scale before dressing and it confirmed the condition of my heart (which I already knew…)…the body is up 5 pounds since the last time I weighed. I guess all that crusty hardness I have allowed to build up on my heart weighs quite a bit. My attitude has been ROTTEN. I have had moments of tenderness and obedience, yes. Moments where I walk away from temptation and have denied myself. That is true.
But lately, I have had a LOT more moments of angry eating…and in my pride, I have minimized the significance of the moment, this choice. I can make a flesh-based choice or a Spirit-filled choice. I have been making a lot of flesh-filled choices, one on top of the other…mostly about what attitude I will cling to…choosing to allow my heart to harden, harden, harden. Then, when I have eaten outside of godly parameters I have insisted in my pride that “I can TOO have this food. I can do what *I* want.” Ugh…
That is the person who “awakened with the dawn” this morning. That is the person who poor Breezy had to cart over hither and yon this morning. I even had an attitude toward Breezy as the last time I rode him, he was not at his best. I approached even Breezy this morning just like I have been approaching everyone… “YOU OWE ME.” (For the record, Breezy will typically have NONE of that! LOL!)
Eeek.
God’s mercies are new every morning. The trails were quieter than usual. We live in a small town, but the trailhead is near where two country highways come together–a “hub” of morning commuter activity. For some reason, the traffic noise carried the *other* way this morning. The sun was bright, the sky gorgeous cerulean blue, the birds calling…it was an amazing morning to be on a horse–a horse who was AMAZINGLY giving me his heart and soul…and mind, thought *and* his feet today! He was a perfect angel.
Normally, my spirit soars and I literally sing out loud. Today, I was feeling so grumpy that I didn’t want to talk. (I was REALLY grump!) I prayed in my spirit about how I was feeling about things…and the nasty, hard edge, was being rasped away, bit by bit by the Spirit’s gentle work…
Breezy was going at such a nice and steady walk that we got all the way to my favorite “lake” (actually, just a large pond). There, I was greeted by a coyote who rushed across the path…what a beautiful coyote, too! Normally, they are so scrawny out there, but this coyote had a lush thick coat in spite of the time of year and how most mammals have shed their coats… On the pond, sat a merganser (I think!) a pair of mallards, and a beautiful Great Blue Heron beat his massive wings in the sky just overhead, having been startled from his early morning feeding ground. A rabbit scurried from berry bush to berry bush, hiding in the thicket. Breezy, as always, kept his head. One of my other horses would likely have jumped out of his skin! 🙂
As I looked around, enthralled by the beauty of the morning, even the greens of the trees and the fields, the poppies, the wild flowers…all of it…the colors all seemed much deeper…and thousands of variations of each color. The quails calling to one another in the briars–issuing their warning cries…the three pair of Canada Geese sitting in the marsh. I know their goslings were hiding. (Isn’t it cool that they mate for life?)
So many blessings met me there…so many mercies. If I could but drink it in…but it is like getting a sip of water from a fire hose…too much, too many…
Yet here I am…in my hard-hearted state…talk about Grace. Grace met me on the trail today. Mercy flooded my heart.
God’s kindness really DOES lead me to repentance…so that is what I am here to do. Not to proclaim to you what *you* should do. That is between you and the Lord. Today, I confess, instead, what God has moved me to do and why. I choose to let go of all my anger, bitterness, resentment. I choose a humble heart. I choose to let go of “my will,” “my rights,” “my way,” “my food,” “my schedule….” I choose to forgive. I choose to be wounded, if necessary. If I can know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings and that means being hurt by those I love, I will know all the more closeness with Him as He teaches me forgiveness which flows from the cross.
Lord, all of it is yours. May I do only that which you want. My life is yours…
Denying Self
Hmm…Sometimes wisdom comes from the most unexpected places 🙂
Yesterday morning, I lamented to my husband as I was *again* saying NO to myself about having more food than my body needed. You see, I had enjoyed my breakfast. I knew that I was done and I had chosen beneficial foods. However, there were donuts and I wanted one. So there. (Said with an attitude!)
I walked away, but as I did, I griped to Bob, “I wish that I wasn’t always having to say ‘NO’ to myself. I just wish that I didn’t WANT what I shouldn’t have any more.”
He replied, simply…
“I guess that is what life is about–denying self.”
Jesus said this very thing in Matthew 16:24 when he said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
To be a follower of Christ, we will have to deny ourselves. Not just food we don’t need, but the self-indulgence of griping about something, or spending what we don’t have, or going faster than the law allows, or shooting back a quick deadly comment that would flatten the family member or co-worker who just wounded us.
Life is about denying self. My attachment to food gives me a truckload of opportunities to deny self and take up my cross and follow Jesus. If he chooses to heal me completely of my fleshly desire for more than I need, I am sure, like the layer of the onion I mentioned yesterday, there will be a “peeling away,” exposing just another way I need his healing touch…
More Layers
On the Thin Within forums some of us have lamented that we think we “get it” and then something in the way we live indicates we don’t “get it.” Some of us have concluded that this is like the layers of an onion. This is a response I posted there…if you aren’t a horse person, it may make little sense. Sorry!
This “layers of an onion” thing is something that God is showing me with one of my horses. He often uses what I see in *their* training to reveal to me what he is doing or wants to do in *mine*…my training in righteousness.
One of my horses, featured at
this web page (also featured in a Chicken Soup book for the Horse Lovers Soul Volume 2! and at this BLM page) is teaching me a LOT about this. For five years, I haven’t asked a lot of him. Why? Because he was clearly formerly abused and has “special needs.”
When I have asked things of him, he has almost always pleasantly surprised me about how willing he is to offer a try. I delight in his willingness, even if it isn’t perfect.
Even the words I just typed remind me of my PERFECT Heavenly Father (and I am no where near like Him) and how He views me–that he delights in any attempt to please Him that I offer up…my “try.” Even when it is imperfect, he looks to the heart of my try and smiles…In fact, scripture says he delights over me with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).
This spring, Dodger went to training. At the ripe old age of 21 he is being “restarted” with the same trainer who worked with him at the camp mentioned at the web page referred to above.
Every time I see him now (once or twice a week), I am astonished at two things… 1.) His continued try and how much “progress” he has made and 2.) How the more he moves forward, the more the layers of the onion are peeled back to reveal yet *more* new things that he needs help with.
God has used this to show me my own “plight” if you will. Yes, I have released all my extra weight, but he has done that wonderful new thing and, in the process, peeled back the layers of the onion…to reveal so many new things I need help with. (This seems to happen daily, too.) Oh, how it blows me away! I feel at once exposed and cleansed…a strange mixture of wonder and challenge.
But one of the things he has done is kindle a hope that I have never had before. He has enabled me to see that with every new situation, every challenge, every trial, every difficult person, I can anticipate that God is at work, forming and shaping my character. There are yet blessings to be recognized, gratitude to be given, worship to offer!
I don’t find “not arriving” as painful as I once did. Yes, I frustrate myself at times, as always. But at the same time, I see that God continues to do a new thing…and another new thing…and another…and another…and that is what Eternity is about, after all! New thing upon new thing! Moment upon moment! Ya know? So how cool is it that I get to experience it now, on earth..just a taste of it, but a taste nonetheless.
I can see better now why Paul said that he delighted in his weaknesses–not to stay weak, but to cling all the more to the strength of Christ and to get to taste that strength with ever-increasing intensity and awareness.Don’t know if this makes sense.
Amazing what God can use my mustang to teach me!
Gratitude
I felt God leading me to post to my Gratitude Blog today. Oh what joy fills my heart as I do that! I hope you will visit this page!
Oops! Just added some more to the Gratitude Blog in THIS entry! (Hubby pointed out I had forgotten some!)
NEW!
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