The Holidays are almost upon us…before we know it, there will be harvest parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and all the associated festivities and opportunities for tantalizing our taste buds.
So…what will we (I) do this holiday season? Will we choose to gain weight like most Americans (and Canadians…LOL!)…”Statistics” say that the majority of Americans gain…EIGHT POUNDS during the holiday season…
OR, will we DELIBERATELY choose to be different from the masses?
Will we enter and sail through the holidays with buoyant spirits and continuing to release weight? Or will we have heavy hearts and consciences and heavier bodies?
It is a choice we make. Every moment of every day…
So…what can we do to prepare for this season?
What will we do?
* When someone brings us “treats” they baked “just for us?”
* When we want to give baked goods straight from our kitchen to others and just want a “bite” of dough…and another…?
* When we are at parties and church events?
* When Christmas cookies and pastries are everywhere we turn?
* With the hustle and bustle of the season that causes many of us to have emotional turmoil and we know that we tend to be emotional eaters?
* With all the fat machinery present during the holidays?
What are your plans? What can your plans be?
God never intended for us to be tormented by food!
Answering my own questions (sort of…more of a meandering monologue…):
My concern for the holidays in my own life…is….
…how will I handle the desires, the lusts, really, of my heart to have “it”…whatever “it” is. Can I ever be free from that kind of lust? The sinful lustful way my flesh longs for various foods? See, to me, even if something is acceptable to eat…if my heart is in “covet” mode, I want to shut that down. I don’t want to feed my sin…I am seeing this as never before…Crystal Munson’s talk on Gluttony helped me to see this…that it isn’t about the food, or the bites, or about 0 to 5…or my body…it is about the sinful heart and the sin…and choosing to capture my thoughts, to take them captive “even when I am at a 0!” …In each moment, my need to have Jesus cleanse me and change me.
Just today, I caught myself LUSTING for zero!…I caught myself or rather the Spirit pointed it out…and I was saddened at seeing the truth about myself. Here I am with a so-called “success story” of how God has removed all this weight…He really *has* done amazing things in my life, but here I still am…struggling with lusting for a 0 so I can have a certain food… Is it acceptable for me to eat that at 0? Yes, absolutely…but do I want to allow a heart issue like that to go by? No… The true “success story” will happen when I no longer react to food like that…
I am just amazed at all that God is pointing out to me about my covetous heart…whew. It floors me. After all this time, you would think I would have grown beyond this…I praise Him that he meets me not with the club of condemnation, but with welcoming arms. His kindness leads me to repentance…indeed it does.
