In the mid-80s, the Nike sports-shoe company was losing a lot of ground to Reebok. As “legend” has it, the “Just Do It” campaign was birthed during a meeting when someone threw out the comment “You Nike guys just do it…” rather off-handedly.

During the mid-80s to mid-90s, the Nike company’s “Just Do It” advertising campaign was responsible for a huge shift in the consumer dollars spent on sports shoes. Nike’s approach was a winner. Sometimes, “Just Do It” works. It did for Nike and, often, it works for us.

There are times when one has to choose, with an act of the will to “Just Do It.” To set aside all the excuses and to take one baby step toward choosing, in this moment, to live out the freedom that Christ has purchased for us.

Sometimes, as I am finding this morning (for instance), grabbing this moment for the Lord means a form of refusing to “Just Do It.” What I mean is that sometimes I have had this attitude that my choice doesn’t matter, so I will just get up off the couch where I have been having my quiet time, head for the kitchen and eat that donut instead of waiting until I am hungry…”Just do it” in a negative light.

So, this morning, as temptation has been present, I have chosen a “Just Don’t Do It” sort of mentality. Just DON’T give in to temptation. Just DON’T get up and have breakfast until I am hungry. Just DON’T make a cup of white chocolate, caramel cappuccino (a “new” vice for me if I let it be…caffeine and all!).

I want to refuse to give in to activities and attitudes that, in the past, have allowed my flesh to have rule over me, over my mind, over my heart. I am done with that…or I want to be.

Sometimes, I can choose an alternate activity to eating…when temptation faces me I can do something else:

We chose an alternate activity (to eating) so that what we’ve done in the past no longer has dominion over us. This will allow us even more time to sort out the feelings that arise and to choose how to respond rightly. By choosing to stop and not give in to disordered eating, we give the Spirit opportunity to speak. Get Thin Stay Thin, p. 173

WHY do I want to, time and again, eat when I am not hungry? What drives that? Why, when I know that eating more than my body needs causes a host of problems for me (including weight gain), do I want to keep doing that which causes such negative results? There is something inside me that isn’t rational…

The sinful nature of our flesh…says, “Get the pain to stop! Get rid of the discomfort!” The Spirit says, “Listen to that hunger. Wait for the Lord.” As we do this, we enter a new pattern of behavior in which we are continuously being renewed in intimacy with the Spirit, choice by choice. GTST, p. 174

Each moment matters…and not just in the “dieting” sense, though it matters there, too. It matters at a much deeper level. When I allow my impulses to drive me, then the first thought I get of the brownies in the kitchen or the left over chimichanga results in my heeding or “obeying” that impulse… I HOP up and follow my fleshly impulses and allow those impulses to drive my life.

Rather, I aspire to stop. I can think of it in one of two ways (or both):

“Just Do It”…just make the hard choice, just say no to the flesh.

Or think of it the other way:

“Just don’t do it…” don’t allow the impulses to drive my choices…learn to harness my appetites.

There is something so much deeper at work here than the food, body size, weight.

As I have refused this morning to give in to fleshly impulses, as I have waited on the Lord in this place…and not gotten up from the couch to go eat breakfast before I am hungry, I have been embraced by his presence. I am more aware of Him. His voice is clearer, His love more tangible. Though it is always present, I so often insulate myself from intimacy with the One who created me by turning to food to be my Delight and my Comfort. These things HE wants to be.