This lesson provided an outstanding reiteration of the fact that the Lord alone can provide that which is satisfying. We have been duped by the lure of food and overeating. Overeating has gotten us to a place of difficulty and, often, despair. Mike Cleveland uses the story of the prodigal son to illustrate this.
If we are children of God then whenever we seek satisfaction in anything other than God Himself, He sovereignly brings us into difficulty for the purpose of bringing us to our senses. (TLT, p. 108)
This lesson illustrates the following principles:
1.) Sin’s promises are empty
2.) Pursuing sin’s allurements leads to difficulty in your life
3.) In order to escape we must come to our senses and begin thinking correctly about ourselves and our situation
When asked “Please record your own experience with these principles. How have you experienced these truths in your own life?” My “short” 🙂 answer was:
1.) Sin’s promises are empty – Food did (and does) not make me happier (except temporarily…and it is always offset by the guilt afterwards). Giving up trying to restrain myself and doing what I pleased didn’t bring the relief that it promised. It brought excrutiating emptiness and fear.
2.) Pursuing sin’s allurements leads to difficulty in your life – I gained so much weight that I feared I would die suddenly. Because of oveating, I had willingly walked into the possibility of a premature death. I no longer did the things I loved in life–ride my horses, play tennis, travel with my family, play in the snow with them–all because I couldn’t enjoy these things physically any more. I was too heavy. All because of an ungodly love for and overindulgence in food. My blood pressure had sky-rocketed. While some of that was due to hereditary factors, it was excessively high due, in part, to my physical condition. I feared a stroke or a heart attack. Understandably so. The shame was overwhelming as well. I wanted to isolate.
3.) In order to escape we must come to our senses and begin thinking correctly about ourselves and our situation – I will never forget laying in bed one night with my heart racing in my chest for the umpteenth night in a row. (This caused me fear, too.) I realized that I was destroying my family just as an unfaithful man does the same for the thrill of his affair. If I died, my family would need to continue without a mother. Who would homeschool my children? What about the care of all the animals who had become so precious to my family? Who would stand in as Mom? My husband works so hard already. Surely I couldn’t expect him to do that–and why? All because I loved food so much that I wouldn’t deny myself excessive quantities of it? I saw just how ridiculous and stupid this was…not to mention sinful. This was the beginning of my return to the Lord and the surrendering of my eating to Him.
The Lord offers so many blessings. It was impossible for me to truly enjoy them when I rejected His will in the way I would greedily indulge in whatever I wanted to eat all the time. I had erected a wall between the Lord and me. The true feast is found in Him.
While we were all excited about food, which led to our overeating, we were failing to see where the real feast for the soul is. The feast is with the Father. (TLT, p. 109)
“I had erected a wall between the Lord and me. The true feast is found in Him.”, amen Heidi, and what I huge wall I had erected. It’s amazing how blinded I was the the divide I caused between me and God with my overeating.