Allie and Judy have done a great thing in this lesson. I really like this group study. They ask us to discuss the HEAL pyramid and then to take time individually to create personal HEAL goals for each level of it. They want us to list practical, action-oriented steps that will help us to reach those goals. We are encouraged to remember that the Lord is not concerned with our outer appearance but with the motives of our hearts. I LOVE that they remind us of this!
So how about it? Let’s take some time to do this. I may post a Part 3 of this tomorrow so that we can really take some time with this. If you don’t have the HEAL book, I want to give you enough information here to be able to participate. Feel free to post questions if there isn’t enough information for you to benefit, too.
You may want to open the book to the HEAL pyramid to have it in front of you. We will go level by level through it here.
Level 1: Relationship with God. Given that we are called by God to enjoy Him, to depend on Him, to call on Him, to serve and worship Him, to allow Him to be the only thing we worship, given our tendency as human beings to put something else in place of Him at almost every turn…maybe especially when we are concerned about our bodies, appearance, and food, what is a very real goal that you can establish for yourself in this area? Prayerfully consider what God is asking you in this?
Goal: _________________________________________________
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Action Steps: ___________________________________________
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You may want to have a journal that you write these things in.
I am not sure I like the way I worded my goal, but here it is without editing:
Level 1 Goal: To invite God into everything, including my eating. To obey Him in ALL things, completely. (I figure if I don’t shoot for ALL things, then I will definitely NOT be obedient. If ALL is my goal, then maybe I am more likely to obey Him more frequently.) I also want to add that this is my goal NOT because I believe I can win his approval this way. In Christ, I HAVE his complete approval. My desire to obey him is motivated out of a heart of love for him. So, I guess my goal would be best stated “To love God more!” 🙂
Level 1 Action Steps: Continue to have the timer on my watch go off every 15 minutes. When it beeps, I will stop and look to God consciously and intentionally for a moment. I will pray, “THIS, I do unto you, Lord.” This will be my prayer.
For some months now, I have had my timer go off incrementally. Sometimes only every hour, but in the past couple of months, I have it set to go off every 15 minutes. It is a reminder to reconnect with God since I am prone to wander so much. This has transformed my life in so many ways. (Even now, it is going off…LOL!)
In the past few days since I included this in my “action steps” with the prayer being “THIS I do unto YOU, Lord…” oh wow…has that ever changed things! It has been incredible to see how God has used that simple, almost *rote*, prayer to stop me dead in my tracks. When I say a word to another, when I drive, when I eat…whatever it may be…saying, “THIS I do unto you…”…yikes. I can’t pray that if it isn’t true. So I adjust what I am doing (most of the time) so that I *can* say it honestly…
Anyhow, this has been really helping me with eating, drinking and other things!
Level 2: Relationship with Food. I have included “and Beverages” in my goal setting. This level of the pyramid is about how I feel about food, do I use it for meeting emotional and spiritual needs or do I truly keep food in the appropriate place, eating to live, rather than living to eat? Do I run to food to do anything for me other than nourish my body? In the HEAL book, other eating disorders are included, too, such as anorexia. In fact, on page 45, we are asked to take some time to reflect on the difference between our spiritual and physical needs. We can so often get them mixed up.
Level 2 Goal: I wrote in my HEAL book, “To relate to food as nourishment–physical fuel–instead of something to fuel my joy.
Level 2 Action Steps: This is one I am prayerfully working through. I know I need some boundaries for a while. Boundaries that I would rather not post here, as I am concerned they might be misinterpreted. If we were sitting around a living room together, I would have the benefit of explaining what the boundaries are and why, and answer questions. Since I don’t have that, I won’t post the details here, but it is clear that I need to have boundaries in effect.
Your turn!
Goal: _________________________________________________
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Action Steps: ___________________________________________
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Please don’t skip this. Even if you don’t want to write anything down, you can prayerfully ask the Lord–even as you read this entry–what might be your Level 1 and Level 2 goals? What action steps can you plan to take so that the goals aren’t just somewhere out there? I encourage you to do this activity prayerfully. God’s goals and actions steps are NOT a yoke of heaviness for us. They bring delight and freedom!
Tomorrow, part three of Living Room Session 2. 🙂
One of my goals is to walk away from obsession. God has helped me to release weight the last year but now I need to stop obsessing about keeping it off and not give in to the fear of gaining weight. Putting my relationship with Him above all else will bring everything into place.
One of my goals is to walk away from obsession. God has helped me to release weight the last year but now I need to stop obsessing about keeping it off and not give in to the fear of gaining weight. Putting my relationship with Him above all else will bring everything into place.
Heidi, I was trying to find the name of that book you mentioned earlier that talked about setting your timer to remind you to talk to God. Would you mind telling me what that was? I've been reading Practicing the Presence of God, which is an old book by a guy named Brother Lawrence, and he talked about how life changing it was to focus on always sensing God's presence whatever you're doing and training your mind to do that. I thought that book you were talking about almost sounded like a modern day version of it. Anyway, I've been trying to do that but it's hard to keep remembering. I thought I'd check out the book you were talking about to see if it has anything that would help. By the way, I love your living room. I would like to be sitting in it with you and visiting in person!
Heidi, I was trying to find the name of that book you mentioned earlier that talked about setting your timer to remind you to talk to God. Would you mind telling me what that was? I've been reading Practicing the Presence of God, which is an old book by a guy named Brother Lawrence, and he talked about how life changing it was to focus on always sensing God's presence whatever you're doing and training your mind to do that. I thought that book you were talking about almost sounded like a modern day version of it. Anyway, I've been trying to do that but it's hard to keep remembering. I thought I'd check out the book you were talking about to see if it has anything that would help. By the way, I love your living room. I would like to be sitting in it with you and visiting in person!
Ok. I SOOO love your timer thing! What a great idea! I don't have a watch like that but i will be prayerfully adding something like this into my day as I get VERY sidetracked easily. Below are the goals I wrote in my HEAL book as I prayerfully answered them, I almost didn't and took a break but I knew I needed to put them down and felt the Lord nudging me to do so :)Level 1: Relationship with God:Goal: To keep my primary focus moment by moment on Hiim and grow closer to Him daily and more in love. (To this I will be adding in the timer thing or having the Lord help me hour to hour refocus on Him).Action steps: Morning quiet time. Seek to bring Him glory all day no matter what it is I am doing.Level 2: Relationship with Food:Goal: To not fear balance in eating. To have a clear guidance from the Lord in waht foods my body needs and when.Action steps: Slow down and listen to God guiding me. Enjoy each moment with food not being the main focus!!!! (all day long)Level 3: Hunger-Fullness Eating:Goal: To eat 0-5 throughout each day and be content adn comfortable in that it is just a habit and my new way of eating.Action steps: Slow down. Let the Lord nourish me. Run to Him when tempted. Memorize scripture. Go for a walk or have a non-food treat to run to when trempted to eat (I read this on the chat from Julie's last discussion on HEAL from thursday night) such as a basket of pampering things, maybe an encouraging book, that I can run to and relax with and get my focus off eating, bubble bath, fun movie, etc, Lord reveal more ideas :)Level 4: Beneficial Food Choices:Goal: To eat healthy balance of foods each day and to recognize the Lord's leading in what He wants me eating and what He wants me preparing for my family.Action steps: (this was hard and I got a little stumped on it so there isn't much)Seek the Lord daily in this, plan ahead, have meals planned…thats all I got 🙂 I am enjoying this study! Look forward to chatting about more! God Bless!!Kim
Ok. I SOOO love your timer thing! What a great idea! I don't have a watch like that but i will be prayerfully adding something like this into my day as I get VERY sidetracked easily. Below are the goals I wrote in my HEAL book as I prayerfully answered them, I almost didn't and took a break but I knew I needed to put them down and felt the Lord nudging me to do so :)Level 1: Relationship with God:Goal: To keep my primary focus moment by moment on Hiim and grow closer to Him daily and more in love. (To this I will be adding in the timer thing or having the Lord help me hour to hour refocus on Him).Action steps: Morning quiet time. Seek to bring Him glory all day no matter what it is I am doing.Level 2: Relationship with Food:Goal: To not fear balance in eating. To have a clear guidance from the Lord in waht foods my body needs and when.Action steps: Slow down and listen to God guiding me. Enjoy each moment with food not being the main focus!!!! (all day long)Level 3: Hunger-Fullness Eating:Goal: To eat 0-5 throughout each day and be content adn comfortable in that it is just a habit and my new way of eating.Action steps: Slow down. Let the Lord nourish me. Run to Him when tempted. Memorize scripture. Go for a walk or have a non-food treat to run to when trempted to eat (I read this on the chat from Julie's last discussion on HEAL from thursday night) such as a basket of pampering things, maybe an encouraging book, that I can run to and relax with and get my focus off eating, bubble bath, fun movie, etc, Lord reveal more ideas :)Level 4: Beneficial Food Choices:Goal: To eat healthy balance of foods each day and to recognize the Lord's leading in what He wants me eating and what He wants me preparing for my family.Action steps: (this was hard and I got a little stumped on it so there isn't much)Seek the Lord daily in this, plan ahead, have meals planned…thats all I got 🙂 I am enjoying this study! Look forward to chatting about more! God Bless!!Kim
Hi, Allison. Fear of gaining weight back can really run deep. Maybe because we long for the freedom from the overweight and when we finally have it we can't stand the thought of all the head junk that seems to go with it. I don't know…I know it seems multi-facted for me. I pray that the Lord shows you freedom from this. You are right. When HE is the focus of our lives, fear ebbs away.Barb, the book that got me started on this is called Soul Revolution. I have read the book by Brother Lawrence and the modernized version of it. Another book that transformed my prayer life is When The Soul Listens by Jan Johnson. I haven't re-read it in a long time, but am thinking I may do that again. God has changed my prayer life since the last time I read it through. Oh! And those aren't photographs of *my* living room! Most of the photographs here at my blog come from a free stock photo website. *MY* living room is much more…er… "rustic" looking! 🙂
Hi, Allison. Fear of gaining weight back can really run deep. Maybe because we long for the freedom from the overweight and when we finally have it we can't stand the thought of all the head junk that seems to go with it. I don't know…I know it seems multi-facted for me. I pray that the Lord shows you freedom from this. You are right. When HE is the focus of our lives, fear ebbs away.Barb, the book that got me started on this is called Soul Revolution. I have read the book by Brother Lawrence and the modernized version of it. Another book that transformed my prayer life is When The Soul Listens by Jan Johnson. I haven't re-read it in a long time, but am thinking I may do that again. God has changed my prayer life since the last time I read it through. Oh! And those aren't photographs of *my* living room! Most of the photographs here at my blog come from a free stock photo website. *MY* living room is much more…er… "rustic" looking! 🙂
Thanks for replying, Heidi. I've been asking God to teach me how to pray lately. I'll check out both of those books.
Thanks for replying, Heidi. I've been asking God to teach me how to pray lately. I'll check out both of those books.