I have been putting off facing into this chapter, I think. I read the pages up to the place where the Mirror, Mirror Exercise begins. Funny how I did that…It is dated 4 days ago…haven’t touched the book since.
I realized last night as I thought about getting up and including the Mirror Mirror Exercise into my quiet time this morning that I was making excuses. This morning, I am heading out of town with my kids, my accountability partner and her kids to San Francisco. No time! I wanted to spend time in another study (or two) that I am doing…hmmm…Of course, as is typical, God faced me with the truth while I was in those other studies.
So I come to this blog to confess to you that I guess I have more “issues” to deal with than I thought. The thought of doing this exercise, while not as horrific to me as it used to be years ago, nevertheless causes anxiety.
I thought I would make “Part 1” about chapter 5 today about those other things in the chapter that I liked…and realized…I am just procrastinating. God is calling me to do this exercise.
Frankly…I don’t wanna.
So, I am stuck. I will give in to His will, but I know I won’t do it this morning…and I felt a sense of responsibility to tell you why.
I guess I still feel at some level betrayed by my body…But even writing that doesn’t resonate as truth. Maybe I don’t feel betrayed by my body so much as I feel betrayed by me. My behavior…my unwillingness to really lay down some strongholds…specifically this insistence that I get to have something sweet in my mouth all the time. :-/ It used to be diet cherry pepsi…and it is a battle now not to use diet drinks the same way. I am not, thankfully. I know that the battle isn’t so much about aspartame and the damage it can do, but it is a battle of my will…my taste buds being an idol in my life…my bowing down to them. And the damage that does!
While I haven’t been giving in to this temptation lately, I nevertheless feel like some of the weight I now have on my body IS related to giving in to my lust for sweet. Sweet apart from aspartame means sugar, means extra calories coming in when I am not hungry… :-/ That is the truth of things.
I have simplified things again and recommitted to drinking only water or carbonated water unless I am at a 0. I hadn’t realized just how much that boundary had eroded…and this will help, I know. Help not just with finding my natural God-given size, but, more, with conquering this stronghold.
Anyhow, when I look at my physical body like I am supposed to in Day 5 of the book and I know how much it has changed since the “after” picture was taken…I am faced with some truth…sure, I don’t need to be as thin as I was when I drank a lot of caffeine and aspartame…but some of the weight on my body, I believe, is there because I have continued to bow to sweet foods/flavors outside of God’s will for me. It is hard for me to accept about myself. That I am so weak. So rebellious and unwilling.
I know I have posted here about feeling ok about my body and all since then. I guess it is something I will struggle with on and off possibly my whole life long. All I know is that the thought of doing Day 5 in the Thin Within book has brought this to the surface and I am glad that I see the truth of it.
So tomorrow, I am carving out the time to do it in the morning…even setting my alarm to do it. I have an appointment with God in my bathroom…with the mirror. Gulp…
For your consideration (and mine): Consider going to iTunes and downloading Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, Fingerprints of God. (It is only 69 cents!) This is an amazing song with a lot of truth in it. When I lead TW classes going through the book, I make sure to include this song as part of our class time. Prayerfully ask God to show you if you believe the truth that this song speaks of. Let’s pray for one another today…to be fully reconciled with God and to our own bodies, laying down anything that hinders or entangles us.
I will post more later, but this week’s assignment (tentatively!) is to pray through and complete chapters 5, 6, and 7 in the Thin Within book.
Please continue to keep your list of attributes of God and how he relates to people as asserted by the authors. Feel free, too, to add to it when you read the scriptures, of course!
Take time to use your list or part of your list to praise God for Who He is and how He relates to you.
Post here about what you experience! I would love to see it!
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. – Song of Solomon 2:15
Foxes are omnivores–they eat all kinds of things. They will eat rodents…which can be a GOOD thing, but they also eat fruit, berries, grasses and may even dig to reach tender roots or shoots of new plants.
Imagine your life, my life…and the new habits we are hoping to sow–what we think about, what we do, what we believe–as a vineyard. The vineyard is vulnerable, tender, young. We haven’t had much time to establish these new habits…these new plants. There is a promise of a fruitful future as we continue to “work the soil” of our hearts. There is hope and yet the work is hard so early on.
Have there been “little foxes” running through your life trying to spoil the work that God is doing as you partner with him in the tending of your vineyard?
What kinds of things act as foxes in your life right now, today, during the past week?
The past two days have been challenging for me! I am not sure why! I woke up on Friday morning with a declaration, “I don’t FEEL like trying to be godly any more! I am DONE!” What is up with that? 🙂 I couldn’t even blame hormones!
Actually, that thought of “I don’t FEEL like trying to be godly any more,” wasn’t just a “little fox,” but was like a huge bear! I needed to nip it in the bud immediately! Because I didn’t catch that fox, it wreaked havoc on Friday and Saturday. Nothing blatantly evil…but just making its way through my life, here and there…all day long…pulling up, as it were, the godly thoughts and behaviors I was attempting to sow–the root of a tender heart–I was trying to cultivate to the Lord–any hope of fruit that was evidence of a life given to God.
I am behind in my reading…I hope some of you can use the extra time to catch up. This coming week, the assignment will be to read and work through chapters 5, 6, and 7…more on that tomorrow, but I did want you to know where I was with the reading.
Today, I think I will ask the Lord to help with the damage left from the indiscretions of the last two days…it doesn’t have to be really blatant. The “little” foxes can do plenty of damage with constant peck pecking at the roots and tender shoots of my life…I need the Lord, the Master Gardener to get this “vineyard” back in shape again.
Time to wait on the Lord…
For your consideration:
1.) What “little foxes” are assaulting your “vineyard?”
2.) What can you do to “catch” the little foxes?
3.) What can you do to more adequately care for, nurture and protect your young “vineyard” of thoughts and behaviors that will glorify God relative to food, eating, body image and all the other related things?
The battle is not “of the bulge.” It is more pervasive than that! The battle we fight is for our minds.
While trying to focus on God, maintaining godly goals, applying principles such as the Keys to Conscious Eating in Thin Within…we find ourselves with thoughts being fixed on … US!
We fight condemning self-talk as we continue on this path. In fact, we may struggle with thinking about ourselves CONSTANTLY. “Am I at a zero?” “Is this what 3 feels like? Or is this 5?” “Can I really eat this and not gain weight?” “This didn’t work for me before, why do I think it will now?” “Will I really lose weight?” “This is going to take forever!” Then we answer some of our questions with any host of me-oriented answers, “No, it won’t work…nothing ever ‘sticks’…why would that change now?” or “Yes, look at me go! I can feel the weight melt off me already!” or “I am going to look GREAT!” or “I wonder if those jeans fit now!” or “I will hop on the scale again (even though I just did 32 minutes ago) and see if I have lost or gained any more weight!”
ME ME ME…
Even if we have “self-talk” that is positive and upbeat…we are sowing a habit that is about ME. I know this from experience. It does NOT serve us well or the goal of becoming Christ-like! If we don’t nip this habit of being SELF-focused in the bud, it will bite us in our ever shrinking rears later. I know this. BELIEVE ME! Even if you release all your extra weight, but have sown the habit of thinking about yourself all the time, God will allow you to find that place of thinness…empty in your soul. He wants your heart. Let us not sell our souls in exchange for thinness.
We want to train our minds and hearts for godliness, instead. We want to sow habits that will exalt the Lord!
Keep praising Him for His attributes, his provision, His grace, His love…any thoughts of self, trade them, replace them with thoughts of “Oh, God! How GREAT you are!” “I need YOU so much!” “Thank you for all YOU do and are!” “Thank you that YOU are bread for my hungry heart!”
This is important…vital. THIS is the Path of God’s Provision. It is paved with stones of God-exaltation!
Hi. If you have just joined us, we are studying Thin Within, by Arthur and Judy Halliday. This week’s assignment is to prayerfully study, read, complete chapters 3, 4, and 5. Chapter 5 is a BIGGEE…a potentially pivotal point. So we may linger there for a few days. I hope those of you joining in now will not feel burdened to “catch up!” It is more important to take as long as you need soaking in the material and allowing the Lord to bring it home to your heart in His special way. It took me the better part of 5 YEARS to honestly get through chapter 5 the last time through. LOL!
As we read, there are two on-going assignments we have:
1.) Keep a list (add to it all the time!) of God’s attributes and the way he relates to you, His child as asserted by the authors and/or through His Word or other sources. (Extra Credit: Use this list to pray by praising God for the specific attributes and traits you discover about Him.)
2.) Keep focusing on the LORD.
These two “assignments” dovetail. The key is, you do NOT want to make this be about SELF! That is what diets do…put all the focus and attention on SELF and how “bad” or “good” we do or *are*…typically with the scale being our judge. We know how these end…badly, with self-condemnation.
Even if you have gone through the TW material before, I challenge you…let the Lord ALONE be your focus!!!! It makes the difference we need. He is our strength. He is our deliverance, he is our hope. He is our…well…our everything!
Another thing I have challenged you with is to throw out your bathroom scale and dare to believe God that he can work in you this summer without the crutch of a man-made bathroom scale. So often we go to the scale to get approval! He has created your body to be reliable, so you can depend on the hunger scale as described in the Thin Within book–a way of describing the God-given cues of physical hunger and satisfaction. If you eat between 0 and 5, you will land at your God-given weight. I believe it! I know it! Who cares what number that is on a man-made bathroom scale!
Whew! As you can see, we are really doing a lot already! If we could hold steady just with these things for now without any additional reading we would really be experiencing some major life transformations!
Add the reading to it and VOOMBA! What a prescription for life change and metamorphosis, inside and out!
I guess, truthfully, this is what chapter four is about anyhow. Will you choose the Path of My Performance, filled with self condemnation, resentment, performance or the Path of God’s Provision, with His joy, His peace, His will, His way, His liberty? The book explains this in an awesome way (if I DO say so! LOL!).
Most important of all, however, is the in-depth description of one of the most crucial concepts in the Thin Within book–Observation and Correction. Please oh PLEASE be sure to read pages 36-38 (and the rest of the chapter) really carefully.
In summary, observation and correction can be described like this:
Observation is choosing to dispassionately evaluate my behavior. For instance, I was emotional upon receiving some difficult news. I went to the fridge and without considering my hunger numbers, proceeded to eat a hot fudge sundae. Obviously, this behavior is not congruent with my goal of eating 0 to 5 and surrendering all of my eating to the Lord, allowing his Spirit to guide me so that I might glorify him with my eating and drinking.
Upon reflection of my behavior, I can: 1.) beat myself up (this is NOT what we want to do!) – “I KNEW I would never be free! I say I want to be free and look at what I do first thing…how can I keep visiting the blog site and interacting with others there!? I am such a hypocrite! What must my husband think, since he SAW me inhale all that ice cream!”
2.) go into denial “That really wasn’t so bad…I *was* really wounded, after all…”
or
3.) dispassionately recognize that this behavior doesn’t agree with my godly goals. “Lord, I could have run to you with my emotions. Instead I ate my way through the ice cream and hot fudge.”
Notice with the third option, there is no condemnation. This demonstrates an accurate handling of the word of truth (see Romans 8:1).
So, as described in chapter 4 of Thin Within, I recognize this behavior as being outside of God’s will for me and not in agreement with my godly goals and I do so without a truckload of emotion. What next?
Simply…I make a plan for change–called “correction.”
For example: “I will establish a boundary. The kitchen is off limits when I have received news on the phone, in the mail, or via email. Before I go to the pantry or the fridge, I will take time to pray, acknowledging the difficulty of the news I have received. I will intentionally WAIT and choose NOT to eat, looking to the Lord first to satisfy my wounded heart. Then, if HE leads me to eat out of true physical hunger, I will choose something that feeds my body in a positive way, as a spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1,2).”
Other examples… Observation: I overate in the car driving home from work. Correction: I will not eat in the car, but will stop and eat, focusing on giving glory and thanks to God for my food.
Observation: I eat too much when I go to Chinese Buffet. Correction: For a short season I will not go to the buffet. In a few weeks, after I have developed a greater sense of commitment in the face of temptation, I will try again.
or…
When I go to the buffet, I will take my own tiny plate and have a boundary of eating only one plate full of food…no food overlapping the edges, no food touching another food. (I know a TW participant who did this…she asked the managers ahead of time and they even gave her a discount since she wasn’t going to eat very much!)
Observation is agreeing with God…or confession.
Correction is planning for change, turning a new direction…or repentance.
It is GRACE filled…it isn’t a tool of condemnation at all.
I will say it again…
We can not hate/condemn ourselves into positive change!
With Observation and Correction, with The Path of God’s Provision, the focus is on the Lord and what HE wants…what he wants is to be our sufficiency. He doesn’t condemn you for looking to food in a moment instead of to Him. He asks you to declare the truth, yes “I blew it!”…and then, with grace, he says, “Go and leave the sin behind…” Jesus came with grace and truth both…not just truth…not just grace. (See John 1.)
He loves you, approves of you, welcomes you…he does NOT condemn you! So why condemn yourself! That isn’t Christ-like. No matter what your goal is from day 3, being more like Jesus should trump all the others. Condemnation has no place in a heart that wants to be like Jesus! God sent his son into the world NOT to condemn the world, but to save the world THROUGH Him! (John 3:17 I think it is…)
So, which path are you on? What can you do to switch to the Path of God’s Provision?
Can you look back over your day and make 3 observations and 3 godly corrections? I know you can!
Get used to using this tool, applying it with grace, inviting God to help you with your thinking, and you will experience a freedom from condemnation AND freedom from behaviors that derail your godly goals!
Goals are godly ONLY when they do not have the power to direct my steps. Only God should direct my steps. Only HE defines my worth and value and He has decided I am worth the universe to Him.
As wonderful as our goals may be…and as eager as God may be to show us his amazing proficiency to do all of these things and more…he will NOT allow goals to usurp his leadership in our lives.
Let us not allow the goal to become an idol.
It IS a challenge to have goals while maintaining our focus on the Lord…If at any point we feel our focus slipping off of him on this journey together, we want to stop and ask Him to fill our vision with Him and Him alone. The goals are NOT worth forsaking our focus.
So I come to this blog to confess to you that I guess I have more “issues” to deal with than I thought. The thought of doing this exercise, while not as horrific to me as it used to be years ago, nevertheless causes anxiety.
I have simplified things again and recommitted to drinking only water or carbonated water unless I am at a 0. I hadn’t realized just how much that boundary had eroded…and this will help, I know. Help not just with finding my natural God-given size, but, more, with conquering this stronghold.
