My family members and I all go to youth group. I guess it is because hubby and I never really grew up that we go too. We love to go to youth group. I frankly feel like our youth pastor is a personal gift from God straight to my heart. When he speaks, I feel like God opens wide my heart and pours in a message straight from heaven. When he worships, I am brought before the throne of God and find myself with bended knee and bowed heart.
This past Wednesday, he asked the kids (including us “old” kids) what our New Years resolutions were. Fifteen and sixteen year olds answered things like “Giving up soda…” or “Getting along with my family.” I kept my yap shut this time because the only resolution I have had because of the “New Year” is one I didn’t want to share. Well, I was willing to share it, but figured it might not help Pastor Tony make his point. My resolution was “I will not make any New Year’s Resolutions.”
Why? you may ask… Well, a whole host of reasons. I find the artificial nature of creating promises to myself and God because of the calendar very shallow for me personally. God calls me to make decisions *daily* to resolveto this or that. It never ever ever has a thing to do with the date.
Furthermore, I realize my tendency to get very obsessive about “goals” or “resolutions” made with the flow of the world’s standards and expectations.
But it was odd how I felt at youth group, harboring this little known fact about myself…that I will not make “New Years resolutions.” I felt like I was some sort of unspiritual, church lady fraud--a rebel. Surely, I should be willing to make a resolution of some sort! I mean, other than “No resolutions!”
Today, while searching for a writing sample to send an editor for a project, I discovered an article I wrote some time ago…December of 2002, in fact, for Thin Within’s ThinLine magazine. I share it here in case it resonates with anyone. Funny how over 7 years later, it says what is on my heart so well!
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An Idol Worth Chasing?
Draped in angelic robes of godliness, adorned with prayer, “obedience” and “repentance” as watchwords, my latest idol has been the all-consuming focus of my life, yet very cleverly disguised. Robbing me of joy while subtly deceiving me into thinking all is well with my Lord and me, my idol has been a relentless slave master that can never be pleased.
Lifting my eyes for a moment, I finally hear the voice of Jesus wooing me over the deafening sound of my idol. In this place, I have a moment of clarity.
What is this idol that has held me spellbound? It is The Goal…The Goal of being thin. The Goal of being godly. The Goal of getting rid of the weight. The Goal of eating between 0 and 5. Bear with me while I explain.
Does the Lord want me to enjoy a healthier body? I have no doubt that he does. Does he want me to eat according to the God-given cues of hunger and fullness? Surely! Does he desire godliness in my life? Absolutely. Then what is the problem? What do I mean by declaring The Goal to be an idol?
The heart of the issue: God wants SO much more for my life than even these wonderful things.
You see, I have been pursuing my GOALS—to the exclusion of all else. To the exclusion of seeking HIM. Because my goals seemed heaven sent, it has been rather easy to fall into this trap. However, the madness that has driven me, the self-condemnation when not arriving or even making headway or “progress”…none of that focuses on the Lord. It focuses on…ME.
Someone wise once said that preoccupation with SELF is at the root of all sin. If that is true, and I believe it is a biblical principle, then these wonderful goals that I have sought after have been a truckload of sin in my life. Nothing should have my focus, my heart, my thoughts like this. Nothing but the Lord God Almighty who reigns over heaven and earth.
Worshiping the idol, The Goal, has caused an inordinate amount of pressure to be on my shoulders. Not just on my shoulders, but gouging deeply, HARD upon my chest where my heart lies, being squelched of love for the Lord. In my place of error, I have wondered “Why isn’t it enough, Lord?” “Why won’t you reward my efforts?” “What am I to do with what I feel has been such sacrifice without any pay off?” You see, I have thought that IF I do such and such, then God would do what HE is supposed to do. But He hasn’t been behaving! My pursuit of The Goal has caused my understanding of God to divert from a scriptural view. I have gone so far as to question “How can God be GOOD?” My image of God has been shaped in the shadow of my Idol. A form of godliness emptied of its power. I have been disillusioned, dismayed, disappointed …and downright angry…at GOD. Thankfully, He can take it.
Seeing this now, however, I am appalled at how deceived I have been. I have allowed The Goal to fill my vision. To be what I live for. To be what I wake up for. To be what I chastise myself for.
The truth, however, is this: The Lord wants so much more for me than just to be physically healthy. He even wants more for me than for me to be godly while on earth. He wants ME. He wants a vital, constant, non-stop, loving relationship with me. He wants to be my Goal. He wants to be my Pursuit. He wants to be my Everything.
The Goals, as long as they are allowed to remain, will remain as obstacles to what God wants for me. This amazing God wants to take even my frustration about this journey toward physical, mental, spiritual wholeness and transform it into a dynamic closeness with Him that surpasses anything I could ever dream or imagine. He doesn’t just want this for eternity. He wants it NOW. As long as I make anything The Goal, I am pandering after an idol, worshiping the Baal. Derailing that which my King, my God, wants.
No more. I refuse to cow to The Goal any longer. The challenge now? Defining the difference between “surrender” (which is something God calls me to do) and “giving up.” “Giving up” makes it look like I have stopped pursuing a Goal I have been called by God to pursue. But in this case, I haven’t been called to pursue it. “Surrendering,” on the other hand, means that I don’t expect God to behave according to my expectations and I will love and trust Him anyhow. I let go of my insistence that I can and will control things by what I do. As Larry Crabb says, “The pressure is off!”
It is time for me to let God be God. Personally, I like Him better when I let Him be who he is and stop pursuing everything else long enough to bask in the pleasure of His company. I want Him. As Paul said, “Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…” (Philippians 3:7-9a)
I have an example of a “do over” (as mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry) that I am slowly, surely, going through, that I *am* doing God’s way. How about that! 🙂 I want to share a bit about this with you…not only to show you an example of what I have been talking about, but also to sort of add some element of accountability here for me. It isn’t settled yet.
One of the things I LOVE to do is to worship God. I love to sing and praise and love leading his people in worshiping him, too. I get an image in my mind of standing before the throne of God…He is the only audience and we are all there before him, worshiping Him and honoring and exalting Him. I am transported to a heavenly place where I have no sense of SELF and a total awareness of how HUGE and AWESOME and WONDERFUL the GOD I serve is!!!
I am quite insecure and care waaaay too much about what others think of me. It is something I have struggled with all my life in spite of God working with me on this for years. I see it can be an idol in my life! Anything that determines my steps, my choices, what I do and say, other than HIM, is suspect as an idol in my life. He wants to be what drives me, what sustains me and that is what I want, too, in the deepest part of who I am.
When you gain and lose and gain weight as quickly, often, and as much as I have (and do) over the years and when even Christian circles tend to evaluate people based on how they look, and when you are up front on a platform leading worship…well, you begin to think that any overhead light in the auditorium is shining directly on your hips, that people can’t worship because of you, that every extra pound points out your failure to live for the Lord…in front of “tons” of people! You become convinced that the people who aren’t closing their eyes when they worship are specifically analyzing YOUR pants size THIS week…and evaluating YOUR godliness based on what they come up with. It is a HORRIBLE place to be. SO self-preoccupied. And in the middle of worship??? Yuck! How fleshly can I be????
And, of course, this is based on the lie that people even CARE! It is a place where the enemy loves to taunt and torment me and try to keep me from being able to worship him freely, even as I help (hopefully) to lead the people in worship from the platform! It is AWFUL!
So, in the past, when I have gone through one of my “gaining” periods, I have bailed. I have said no to any requests to help out with leading worship, to sing solos, or any other “up front” ministry. I have refused to use my gifts, skills, talents and joys…whatever it is that HE has given me that allows me otherwise to serve and minister as He leads. In essence, I have allowed shame to beat me down–back into hiding under a bushel again. And shame begets sin begets shame begets sin.
So here is the do-over part. 🙂 As I have shared here, for the past 16 months or so (wow, has it been that long?), I have really been struggling with being obedient to the Lord. I know he wants me to learn obedience (I think previously, I wasn’t so obedient either…but masked it well, but that is best left for another blog entry). And my “struggle” has been manifested on my ever-widening hips once again. Each week that I am on the worship team, I have thoughts that flit through my head…I entertain the idea of quitting…of letting shame, once again, win the battle. On my really bad days, I torment myself about it. On the good days, it might be a fleeting thought that I dismiss with prayer and praise…but it is always before me. :-/
This time I know what is going on. I know that the Enemy of my soul is at the root of this. I know that he wants me to wrap my excuses in a “godly” reason, too:
“I dishonor the Lord by my disobedience, so I am not qualified to lead in any way…I should step down until I can be an example of honoring the Lord in my choices.”
The truth is, I have a call from God that trumps that so-called “godly” reasoning. God has told me without a doubt that this is one of the do-overs. That THIS time, I need to learn to praise him through it, to get eyes off of self and others and to press on to know Him more…
So that is what I am doing. Each Sunday when I get irritated with myself about what I will wear on the platform again (hopefully something that hides the obvious, is my thought), I entertain the notion of quitting…but He reminds me that this isn’t an option because He wants to teach me that if I keep my eyes on HIM, that is all that matters. I am there to praise HIM, exalt HIM, no matter what. So that is what I do. Sometimes it is a HUGE battle and I have to fight, even as I sing and play…for everything I am worth, to fix my eyes on HIM.
How about you? Are there ministries that you have allowed yourself to stop being involved in because of shame? Are there experiences you deny yourself and others…ways that you keep God from using you because of shame in your life? How about allowing God to make this into a do-over…and choose not to let shame and the Enemy win. Choose to praise Him in the midst of it. Choose to do THIS do over the way God would have you. Discover HIS sufficiency, His strength!
Do you remember being a kid in a classroom…and having a test or an assignment and not giving it your best…then getting a grade and being told, “No do-overs on this one!” Do you recall that feeling of having missed the boat, not having made the most of the opportunity to do your best?
On the other hand, there were times when I sploogied on an assignment or a test and the teacher announced that there *would* be a chance for a “do over,” and I was so relieved!
I love that God does “Do-Overs.” In fact, the Lord often brings do-overs again and again, until I DO make the most of the opportunity–allow HIM to do what He has in mind!
As I shared in a previous blog entry, sometimes “do overs” are painful. Actually, I have discovered that *most* times they are. The very fact that they trigger previous memories can be painful in and of itself! For instance, I found myself in a “do over” when our Pastor resigned last summer. I suddenly plummeted into an old dark place of rejection and abandonment. Fortunately, God helped me to see what was going on. I was smack dab in the middle of a “do over.” Instead of the helpless child who was scared and alone, I was surrounded by friends, family, and equipped with tools that the Lord has given me to manage difficult situations and emotions. By His grace, that “do over” was managed and it went a long way in displaying God’s redemption in my life for the years the locusts had eaten. Being on the pastoral search team and having a blog where my husband and I write about our experiences has been SO redemptive and SO healing!
In my previous blog entry here about another “do over” that God is currently providing, I mentioned that I was in a great deal of emotional pain because of the familiarity of the situation in which I currently find myself. I feel like someone’s LIFE depends on if I walk on egg-shells just right or not. I then feel resentful and bitter–I grew up feeling this way!…And guess what? As a child, I learned to soothe myself or comfort myself with food when I felt this way! After all, I “deserve” better treatment! I “need” comforting! It is no small wonder I am currently drawn to “comfort” foods excessively!
THIS time, though, I know that God wants to redeem this situation. He wants to show me that HE is sufficient, HE is my comfort, HE is my salvation! So I know that I can grow in this…and, at the same time, get the person I love the help he needs–something I couldn’t do when I was a kid for the person that I felt threatened by.
I realize that I must be willing to do these “do overs” the way GOD wants me to do them. Otherwise, I will not only struggle through this version of the “do over,” but I will guarantee that he will bring me yet another situation where things feel all-too-familiar…more pain, more chances to experience his healing, yet another do over!
To do the do over the way GOD wants me to do it means to resist the almost-instinctive urge I have to grab at food, or grab at another way to numb out, to quiet the hunger, stifle the ache. It means…and this is important…I must be still in that place of need. To sit and wait quietly for the Lord.
…it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Lamentations 3:26
Jeremiah tells us simply…”It is good to wait quietly for the Lord.”
A slightly sarcastic, cynical and rebellious part of me wants to say “So, Jerry, ‘buddy,’ if that is so true, how come ‘waiting quietly for the Lord‘ hurts so much!?”
I have discovered that it is often because he allows me to experience need. I don’t like feeling need. Like a person uncomfortable with silences when getting to know a new friend, I can’t let that need, that void, that emptiness remain. I MUST fill it! With SOMETHING!
He tells me no…to be still. To wait quietly for HIS salvation, for HIS way for this “do over” to be done!
15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!”
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
– Isaiah 30: 15, 16, 18
Oh! How like the people in this passage I am so very often when given a chance for a do over! I want to flee! Or if not that, then the quick fix!
He longs to be gracious to me, to you. He rises to show me compassion, to show YOU compassion. We must wait for him during this do over and resist the overwhelming urge to stuff our faces with yet one more thing to eat, or to fill our schedules with one more thing, or to concoct one more strategy to depend on ourselves to solve the issue, or to lunge for one more unneeded toy (when our credit cards are maxxed out already)…Whatever it is, will you, will I rest, repent, wait (in quietness and trust) for the salvation of the Lord? Will we allow ourselves to acknowledge our lack, our need? Will we wait for him to satisfy the need His way? This is the purpose of a do-over! He uses these do overs to redeem the many years that may have come before where we didn’t experience this because we did things our own way!
I don’t really understand this mentality I am struggling with. Why do I want to *run* from the One who loves me? Why do I want to dodge His questions? His healing?
Healing is (ironically enough) painful. He has brought me to a place that is soooo familiar. And I detest it. It feels like a place where I was raised…where I felt helpless…and my hands were tied. I see that he has brought me to this place because *this* time he wants to show me how he intends these kinds of circumstances to bring forth His purposes, His fruit, His healing, His growth. (Instead of self-sufficiency and the “fruit” of doing it my way…)
But all I know is that this feels so familiar–painful…I feel like a trapped animal. As a child, I was trapped in these circumstances. As an adult, I have some freedom.
He wants me to forego the exercise of this freedom or, even more, to choose to exercise my freedom in going through this place, this place I want to flee from, that I want to avoid, that I want to deny.
In my head, I know His healing is here. But I am reacting as if I am still that 8 year old child, helpless, unprotected, afraid…
The entire thing is making me angry, too.
I must be willing to prayerfully evaluate the roll my emotions and my past (and my present experience of reliving the past) have on my disordered eating. This is an opportunity to do that. Instead of running from Him, I have to make a choice to surrender…and to invite the pain to wash over me long enough to experience what He intends. I know healing is in this place. I know it… but it is so hard to willingly subject myself to the pain of it all.
This was posted by “MishaPraise”–also known as “Red from Iowa”–on the Thin Within forums. I repost it here with permission. I thought it was too good not to share with as many as possible! Thanks, Red, for letting me share your wisdom and insight with others!
I had an interesting epiphany this morning that I will try to put into words. It’s probably common knowledge to all of you but it was spiritual dynamite to me.
Hunger will find me. It will find me. I don’t have to hunt for it like I’ll miss it or something. God has constructed our bodies in such a way that when we are hungry, it will let us know, and of course, He will help it a bit if something is in the way of our realizing it.
So simple, but I have spent many obsessed hours “looking’ for hunger. Am I hungry, am I not, is this 5? or 4? or 3? It was like planting a little seed and digging it up every day to see if it had grown? It created it’s own obsession and pushed out things God wanted to say and do in me.
So, today, I will not stress over it. When the body is hungry, it will get in touch with me. It waited until 10 this morning. But I do not have to worry about it any more. That lie, that it is all up to me, is shattered.
So is the lie that I HAVE to eat the moment I feel hunger. I don’t have to if I can’t do it the way I need to within the perameters of conscious eating. I can wait. I won’t die ( although I imagine that is one of the lies the enemy has been whispering in my soul. NOT ANY MORE!!!!!!!) Jesus waited 40 days once. (I’m not talking anorexia here) . I’m talking about thwarting a little lie from the pit called gluttonous expediencey, gotta have it and gotta have it NOW!! That is the mantra of a food addict, let me tell you. I think it’s at the core of all addiction really.
But it’s not too great for God to handle and defeat. Nothing can defeat Him, which is just perfectly awesome because Romans 8 says He is for us and does not condemn us. Jesus took all God’s anger and condemnation for our sin on the cross. That left God to lovingly watch out for us. And that is just too cool.
Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father’s house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.
~ Psalm 45:10-11
God is doing a new thing…right now, today. This is a fact! I want to rejoice in it, delight in it. To do so, I must release my hold on my past, be it 2 minutes ago, 2 decades ago or more!
For me, one of the biggest issues is the way I was raised…the memories I have from my childhood and the things I have come to believe about myself and about God that are rooted in my upbringing. As my eyes fall on this passage, the mandate from my Lord to forget my people and my father’s house is powerful. So much of who I am today seems bound up in the past!
But that is just the point! Early in my life, I learned to use food to cope with disappointments and emotions I didn’t want to feel. I learned, too, to believe the lie that food is my enemy.
God calls me to choose to forget these things…to choose to allow him to renew my mind as is spoken of in Romans 12.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve
what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
~ Romans 12:1-2
But more…Psalm 45:11 tells me that I have a new truth to believe. That truth is that the King is enthralled with my beauty! Can I embrace this belief? Will I choose to believe what God says? Will I allow him to trade my old ways of thinking, rooted in “my people” and “my father’s house” and replace it with this truth that he speaks over me? To do so really would be a new thing.
How about you?
If you were to let go of all the things that you believe about yourself and trade that for believing Psalm 45:11, that the King of the Universe is enthralled with your beauty, how might this affect you today?
Feel free to use the comments part of this blog to respond.
I don’t know about you, but if I were to believe God in this, if I were to allow this thought, that He is somehow “enthralled” by my “beauty,” to go with me through the day, I believe I would live differently…and truly, radically, experience that “new thing” that God is at work doing!
This time of year, this blog gets a lot of hits due to people asking Google “Is God Doing a New Thing?” I want to answer that question with a resounding YES!
His Word is filled with examples of situations and verses of promise that state that this is so!
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
– Isaiah 43:18-19
Look at this passage a moment. What do you suppose, from this text, we need to do in order to see and experience the new thing that God is doing? You got it! We have to let go of the past. Even victories of our past and definitely “failures” or “perceived failures,” we must let go! Let’s stop telling tales of former glories, former wounds, former victories, and the pain of the past. Let’s release our grip on whatever we think we know and open our arms, hands and hearts to what God IS doing now!
Paul is definitely one great example of this:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared
to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith.
– Philippians 3:7-9
Even the GOOD things, must be counted as rubbish or loss compared to what God is doing now.
Look again at Isaiah 43:18-19. Note that it doesn’t say “I WILL DO a new thing.” It doesn’t say “I DID a new thing.” God promises that, now, “I AM DOING a new thing!”
God IS doing a new thing. RIGHT now. As you sit here at the computer reading this. Even if *you* think you are stuck in a rut, you have never been quite the same person as you are right now and the circumstances you are in aren’t quite the same as anything you have ever experienced before. THIS is a NEW moment! (Connecting this with yesterday’s post…) This moment is brand new! Capture it for the Lord. He IS doing something new in it!
In scripture, God is constantly doing the unexpected, the new, the wondrous.
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:22-23
His mercies, compassions are new every morning and, if you look more deeply into scripture, I think one can even say justifiably, each moment.
So, yes! No need to search Google! God IS doing a new thing! His eternal Word promises that this is so! It is interesting…God’s name for himself revealed in scripture is I AM! This is a present tense that is always sufficient in the moment…for the past, for the future, for the now. Whatever the question is to what I lack, God responds, “I AM!”
He says “I AM doing a new thing!”
I love that he asks the rhetorical question, “Do you not perceive it?” Well, gosh! If I don’t SEE it, maybe I have blinders on. After all, he says, it IS springing up! WHOO HOO! There is hope here! God IS doing a new thing…right now, in this moment. And another new one now…and now! In order to see it, perceive it and experience it, I have to let go of the former things and stop dwelling on the past. I must allow Him to give me eyes to see it!
He IS making a way in the desert of my life. He IS making streams in my wasteland!
We often minimize our momentary choices when we do something wonderful in the moment, but we allow a poor choice in a moment to spell disaster for the day or more. It is an odd way that we have of thinking about time. God has shown me that THIS moment, THIS choice, THIS momentary surrender, THIS babystep…it matters as it is one step closer to a softened heart. It DOES matter.
Likewise, one bite that I take when my heart is convicted isn’t just a mere bite…the caloric content of one bite of almost anything is negligible, but what happens with a choice to disregard the Spirit’s tender conviction is another layer of a callus is placed on my heart…eventually, my heart will be hardened to my Shepherd’s sweet voice if I keep ignoring what he says! Not because of the food, but because of the choice to say NO to Him! No matter what it is He directs me about!
God would do ANYthing for my heart, so that one little choice that seems so minimal that disregards the sacrifice he has made for me…it is actually HUGE…and the tiny little choice that I make to deny self and to say yes to God in this moment…it isn’t so tiny…it is HUGE as it aligns with his purposes for allowing Jesus to be tormented and to die for me. He delights in my taking captive THIS moment for Him! He purchased me. He chose to come to earth so that sin would be defeated and I could have a relationship with him, walking moment-by-moment with Him, keeping in step with the Spirit as I listen to my Shepherd’s voice and respond accordingly. When I choose, in this moment, to cooperate with this, it thrills His heart! THIS is what matters! THIS moment! Not all the moments that came before. Once they are gone, they are history. I don’t have to pay a penalty for indiscretions made a moment ago, an hour ago, 10 years ago. Yes, there may be consequences, but in Christ, I can observe, correct, move forward in THIS moment! Take captive my thoughts NOW!
Every single solitary choice matters, but not because of what it does to my *body*!!! It is because of what it does to my ****heart****!!!! Oh! I wish I could grasp this fully! He cares soooo much about our hearts!!!! If it is about my body and what I think of being thin or fat or fit at any given time, then it is so negotiable! How I feel about being fat or thin may change at any given point just based upon what I have been reading, who I hang around with, how good I think I look in a certain outfit now, and what food is presented. My feelings about that are fickle, at best.
But if it is about the condition of my heart with respect to my Lord (and it is), then the “motivation” to say YES to him NEVER goes away! He cares CONSTANTLY!
If I lament that I don’t ever seem to have a “good eating day” or that I start the day well, but then get derailed by 11am, I definitely need to shift my focus to the moment. Here is how it works (I have blogged about this before, but it bears repeating!):
Right now, this moment…I make a choice. I can take this moment captive and give it to the Lord. You are reading this blog and you can prayerfully respond to God in the moment, too. (If you are eating at your computer without regard for physical hunger, for instance, you might want to stop and prayerfully evaluate if God is calling you to eat right now. If you were to take this moment captive for Him, what would it look like?)
Great…ok, that moment is gone, so…now, how about THIS moment?
Now this one…Yay!
See how this works? 🙂
By the time you have read this blog entry, you may have 5 minutes worth of moments you have captured for the Lord…that is a LOT of moments where you have chosen, freely, to give yourself to God. THIS ALL MATTERS! It pleases him so much that you choose to do this! But those 5 minutes were made up of 100s of momentary choices. Do you see? 🙂
When we get up from your computers, we continue to do the same. Let’s refuse to consider the entire day or the entire week or certainly not the entire year! Instead, he has given us this moment. Let’s capture it for Him…
As we string together one moment for Him with another moment for Him, before we know it, we have an hour of moments that we have seen His victory. We continue in the present moment to do likewise and moments build hours, hours build days, days build weeks…and ta-dah! Before we know it, we have a life that is patterned more on surrender to God than on raising a rebellious fist in his face! But it happens not by looking at the entire thing…it happens by relishing the moment he has given us NOW and declaring it HOLY ground NOW. I can’t really say what will happen an hour, week, month or year from now, but I can do something godly with what I have been given…and what I have been given is THIS moment, NOW!
Let’s go into the year ahead with resolutions that don’t look like the world’s. God wants so much more for us. In fact, Jesus may come again on January 2nd! 😉
If you are tempted to make a New Year’s resolution that looks like these:
“Lose weight in 2010” “Get Healthy in 2010” “Work out 3x a week in 2010″…etc….
I challenge you to, instead, resolve to develop a Momentary Mentality. Let’s commit to take this moment captive to the Lord–EACH moment!…to live with eternity in view, but capturing the moment for Christ!
…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness
Ephesians 4:24
I am blessed to live in a beautiful place. Many sojourn here for incredible athletic experiences–100-mile running races (Western States), 100-mile equestrian endurance races (Tevis Cup), mountain biking, fishing, white-water rafting.
We share our little piece of paradise on the side of a hill with two dogs, a chinchilla and four horses.
Since I am the primary animal lover in our family, the responsibility for the horses falls primarily to me–and rightly so. This time of year, the mystique, intrigue, and “romance” of having horses is eroded by buckets of rain that fall, causing mud and manure (or, most likely, a combination of both) to be everywhere. Should the ponies go frolicking around, kicking up their heels at a time like this, everything else flies around too. (To the right is my pony, Breezy, in his rain sheet, standing in the muck.)
No matter what the weather, three times each day I head out there to do my chores, which include mucking the little arena the horses have access to (adjoining a big hillside forest turnout) and feeding them…these are messy, muddy, poopy jobs! All for the love of the equine! LOL! I slog through the gunk to get to their feeders. In the summer, I can spread hay all over the forest, but this time of year, the ponies have to be fed in their feeders most of the time. Upon completing my chores, I have been known to re-enter the house with “mud” (or something more sinister disguised as mud, with a much more “pungent” aroma) on my sweatshirt hood or my back. This is in addition to the mud caking all the normal places such as pant ankles, legs (and, occasionally, my rear and arm should I slip and land on my backside).
Often, the rest of my daily routine adjusts to the timing of my “horse chores.” For instance, my daily shower may be put off until I find myself longing for “clean” mid-day. It is rather odd, though. In spite of emerging from the shower victorious over my arch-nemesis, unless I have a place I have to be or plan to host visitors, I typically figure “Why bother changing into clean clothes? They would just get dirty, too.” Granted, if the mud on my clothes is still wet, I am less likely to do this. 😉 Nevertheless, since I plan on just going out and getting dirty again, putting on freshly washed clothes to match my freshly washed body, seems pretty pointless! After all, why bother changing into clean clothes since I am just going back outside again and I am sure to get nuzzled with snot-nose horsey faces or rubbed on by a dusty head or step ceremoniously into a fresh pile of…well, you get the idea.
Often, I toss my favorite jeans and sweat shirt into a pile on the floor (complete with mud smudges) and head into the shower. I then step out of my hot-water reverie, having been transformed, shrug my freshly dried shoulders, slide back into mud-smudged jeans and hoodie, aware that I will be feeding ponies dinner in just a couple of hours. With all the rain dumping from the sky outside these days, I know that I will definitely be slogging my way through my evening horse chores again.
I would love to change into nicer or, at least, cleaner clothes. In fact, my husband bought me a wonderful soft sweater jacket for Christmas. It is beautiful and, did I say…soft? But it is white! I wonder how life would be if I were to shower and then put on a clean pair of pants, socks, and this white sweater? (In fact, I wonder if I will ever wear this sweater! I LOVE it, but it is white!)
Here is the thing and the point of this lengthy post…I get in the shower and get out, enjoying being clean, but I don’t plan to change my behavior so it doesn’t really last long. In fact, I basically “make provision” for heading back out into the mud. I don’t plan to change. Wearing something clean, let alone white and new runs totally contrary to what I accept as my reality. My reality is that I am going to behave in such a way as to be mucky and gunky anyhow, so I expect it and, even, plan for it.
If I were to put on the sweater my husband bought me, I bet I wouldn’t live quite the same way. In fact, assuming I went out at all, I bet I would stay on this side of the fence and throw the hay over! If not that, then I would likely ask someone else to do my horse chores and I would stay clear of the muck all together! I would live verrry differently if I wore that nice white sweater hubby gave me!
Yesterday, as I got out of the shower and had the fleeting thought of “It would be nice to put on clean clothes, too…” and argued with myself just as quickly…”Yeah, but what’s the point?”
I heard the voice of the Spirit of God impress on my heart…
“Child, you do this with me as well.”
Yes…each morning I start the day spending time focusing on Him, confessing, committing, genuinely offering myself to Him. I get “cleaned up” so to speak. It is like my shower…I am cleansed, forgiven, his grace abounds…but then, I get up and leave that precious time with my Savior and Lord and proceed to live as if I assume that I won’t change. I “make provision” for the same old same old…the same old rut, the same old muck and same old behavior that keeps me coming back asking Him to forgive me again and again. I do this instead of “changing my clothes” in anticipation of choosing to change.
What if I were to put on a new soft white sweater, spiritually speaking? Or, better, like Isaiah 61:10 says, what about the robe of righteousness? Is there some way that if I were to “put on” clean clothing, I might live accordingly? I might stay “on this side of the fence” instead of heading back into the muck of behavior that dishonors God?
Wow. Maybe I will choose to wear that white sweater for the rest of the day…to remind me physically of the fact that God HAS made me clean…now I am to LIVE IT OUT! To remind myself to choose differently when I am tempted by sin.
…Binge-Eating Couch Potato or Wholesome-Food-Eating Gym Rat?
Those of us who have struggled with food, eating, body issues for much of our lives need to be careful not to allow ourselves to be deceived as we search for an answer to our “problem.” Many of us live at one end or the other of a continuum. At one end, we obsess about food and eating the delectable treats we enjoy with abandon–without caring about what God has to say about the matter, being gluttonous and greedy. Rarely living anywhere between the two extremes, following some moment(s) of huge conviction or an experience where we come face to face with how out of control we are, we fly to the other end of the continuum, and earnestly manipulate and control our food, limiting the quantity in an extreme way (even to the point of denying physical hunger), weighing and measuring, charting and graphing obsessively, exercising compulsively. In this place, we live in fear if life is temporarily too busy or we feel too under the weather to maintain our exercise regimen for a day and need rest, or we worry we will gain ten pounds overnight (literally) if we “give in” to Mom’s home-made chicken soup (how can we, after all, count the calories in home made chicken soup? etc…).
I hope this comes across with intensity:
For me, in my life, these behaviors have been the same ungodly obsession, but with a different appearance. They may make me appear godly, but it really is just another way of indulging in the same sinful pattern in my life–fixating on my bodyand on food.
There is nothing wrong with exercising or being aware of what I put into my body, in fact, I believe these are great things! But I have learned over a long period of time that the Lord Jesus wants to break me free from an obsession in ALL it’s forms. No, wait…more than that…He already has. It is up to me, as I call on him for strength in the moment to walk in the victory he has already purchased in the strength he provides by the power of His Holy Spirit.
If fear, in any way, is a part of what motivates me, I must invite God to “search me and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” as fear can be an idol. God wants NOTHING but His own presence and Holy Spirit to direct my steps!
Rather than fear being fat, I must hate sin! In *all* its forms!
The diet fanaticism and gym-rat mentality that has characterized me in the past, is out of his will for me:
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world,
why, as though you still belonged to it,
do you submit to its rules:
“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
These are all destined to perish with use,
because they are based on human commands and teachings.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom,
with their self-imposed worship,
their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,
but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
– Colossians 2: 20-22
Because of the tendency I have to get self-righteous, legalistic, prideful and to “just do it,” I know that as soon as I begin to speak of “taking responsibility,” “caring for my body as the temple of God,” “being a good steward of the body He has entrusted to me,” and other Christian “good health” catch-phrases, I have to be especially wary. I can allow a good, godly motive to carry me away into a place that is equally compulsive, sinful, dark, and displeasing to God as when I sit on my rear and binge time and again.
What makes it even more of a challenge, though is:
One approach, our world praises! The other, our world looks upon with disdain.
One approach, leads me (usually) to have a physical appearance that the world admires. The other, often leads me to have a physical appearance that the world rejects.
God isn’t a “factor” in this equation at all, let alone the sole motivator!
The question is, what is God speaking to my heart, today, right now, in this moment? What does He want? To what does He call? What will obedience to my Lord and Savior look like in this moment? In this hour? In this day? In this week?
I hope you will share what God has laid on your heart. I would love to hear from you. I will write more about this in the days ahead.
This past Wednesday, he asked the kids (including us “old” kids) what our New Years resolutions were. Fifteen and sixteen year olds answered things like “Giving up soda…” or “Getting along with my family.” I kept my yap shut this time because the only resolution I have had because of the “New Year” is one I didn’t want to share. Well, I was willing to share it, but figured it might not help Pastor Tony make his point. My resolution was “I will not make any New Year’s Resolutions.”
Draped in angelic robes of godliness, adorned with prayer, “obedience” and “repentance” as watchwords, my latest idol has been the all-consuming focus of my life, yet very cleverly disguised. Robbing me of joy while subtly deceiving me into thinking all is well with my Lord and me, my idol has been a relentless slave master that can never be pleased. 
