Do you ever feel like you have an endless arsenal of diet remedies and routines available at your ready disposal…that you should, by now be able to make mince-meat out of any temptation that comes your way, that extra weight should be fleeing the scene just to get out of harm’s way, since you are so adequately educated, prepared, and well-armed?
Sometimes, all our remedies and quick fixes actually add to our troubles, rather than serve to solve our problems. The guy in this picture has a pretty impressive gun belt, but he is also carrying a lot of bulk. 🙂 Maybe what he considers as “ammo” is actually hindering his progress…like “extra weight” that holds him back from being his best! From negotiating through life to his optimum ability!
I know that is how it was for me for years. A professional dieter, training to be a personal trainer and aerobics instructor, going to go to work for one popular weight-loss program…and then suddenly I was stopped dead in my tracks…the very “tools” that I thought were helping me to “beat” the “enemy” were actually tripping me up. The more I dieted, the more my heart could “justifiably” fixate on food…the very thing from which I was trying to break free!
So here is the TRUE magic bullet (I know everyone says that, but this I KNOW from experience!)…if you want to be free from overeating and extra weight, rather than head off on another diet that will encourage you to obsess about food and your body (the very things you want to be free from worrying about!) what if you and I were to foster a deeper focus on the LORD! Choose a different focus.
It keeps coming back to that. What do I long for, delight in, desire more than anything? If it is food, I will keep having a massive struggle on my hands. If I fixate on having a thin body, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, even that won’t help me to find my natural, God-given size.
What DO you desire more than anything?
Psalm 34: 4 says Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
How is this related to the desire to have a thin body for the rest of our lives and not to struggle with overeating?
It is important to understand that we became overweight by delighting ourselves in food. We have run to food when stressed, bored, sad, or just because we delighted in the taste of it. And as we turned to food, we began to delight in it more and more. (TLT, p. 184)
It keeps coming back to what I will allow to be my focus. If I choose to train my mind and heart to focus on the Lord, His glory, His awesomeness, if I take time to be still and know that He is God, memorize His Word, pray and praise Him, if I make gratitude a practice of my life, giving thanks even when I may not be thank-FULL–there WILL be a transformation that will occur! My delight will be in him and not in food! As my delight shifts to the LORD, I won’t overeat and my weight WILL dwindle. But it is all because my heart has learned to focus on what REALLY matters–HIM and HIS glory!
As we feed on and delight in Him we are given the desires of our hearts. (TLT, p. 184)
So there you have it…the real magic-bullet for overeating and weight loss. If we train ourselves to delight in the Lord instead of food, some changes WILL happen! The “enemies” will be vanquished! We won’t overeat and we will release the weight…the desires of our hearts will change, but in the meantime we will see some of the changes that we have longed for.
It bears repeating…this may sound “simple” and it is…but it isn’t easy. I would never assert otherwise! But it is well worth it to press on to pursue it!
Application: What can you do/think/be/say today to foster a greater delight in the Lord?
Note: My journey through The Lord’s Table workbook is coming to an end. Though it is a 60-day workbook, the last two days’ material is mostly review and evaluation for the benefit of TLT staff. So tomorrow, Day 58, will likely be the last I share from TLT. I have already launched the next leg of my journey, making my way through Get Thin Stay Thin, by Arthur and Judy Halliday. (This book was formerly released as Thin Again and Silent Hunger.) I hope you will continue to join me as I head into the valley of the shadow of death. (Yikes!) I am so thankful that the Lord journeys with me. I hope you will as well!
Thank you Heidi. This is exactly what I NEEDED to hear today.Melanie in Ontario
Love Love Love this post. It so gets to the heart of the matter!I have been “getting back to basics” this week since I started the latest session of my TW support group and I have found myself amazed at how I have overcomplicated this thing. You are correct -if my focus is in the right place, if I am delighting in the Lord, if I am depending on the Lord, everything else falls into place.Melanie in Newbury Park 🙂