God Speaks

by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 15, 2009 | Blog

Over the year that I released 100 pounds, I received accolades, praise, encouragement. It was wonderful on the one hand, but I battled with my pride…and lost. For the better part of the following year, I coasted along maintaining the weight loss pretty effortlessly (said rather smugly), but during that year, my focus shifted. I sensed it…and began to grab earnestly–desperately, even–for some way not to let the goal for which I had worked slip through my grasp. During that time, my focus definitely went OFF of listening to the voice of God in the moment by moment walk of life and on to the food, my weight, performance.

As I look back over the past 2 months, I see even more how I have strayed. My desperate attempts to focus on the Lord have been about performance…reading this book, doing that bible study…DO DO DO!!!

I feel like the people spoken about in Isaiah 28:11-13:

12 to whom he said,

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest“;

and, “This is the place of repose”—

but they would not listen.

13 So then, the word of the LORD to them will become:

Do and do, do and do,

rule on rule, rule on rule;

a little here, a little there—

so that they will go and fall backward,

be injured and snared and captured.

Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, a little here, a little there…

I fasted sweets, began the 60-60 experiment, fasted the bathroom scale…did The Lord’s Table bible study, did the Freedom From Emotional Eating bible study and began reading numerous other books, all designed to GET ME CLOSER TO GOD again.

Talk about frenzy!

One thing, though…I haven’t been still. My frenetic grasping at straws has just further promoted the very problem I am desperately trying to solve.

Jesus says, “Peace be still.”

“Be still and KNOW that I AM God…”

“Come to me and rest…”

“Let the weary rest…”

“Child, I lead you beside still waters…”

TRUE CONFESSIONS: (Oh, this is hard and I want to edit this OUT of this blog entry…) As I noticed that the jeans I have worn for 15 months have begun to be uncomfortable, I got on the scale yet again and noticed the number is TEN pounds up from where I landed in October of 2007.

PANIC.

Dread, shame…what I have feared is happening….

This is a ruse, though. Fixating on the number hasn’t helped me at all, so why would it now?

So, today I step off the scale by which man weighs my value…off the man-made platform that says, “Look at my success, world! I have maintained my weight loss!”

But I don’t do this in shame. I do it in relief. The jig is up, the performance has ended. The curtain has closed. Now I can just be. Whew!

Today, I emailed my accountability partner and let her know that I think I should stop reporting about food. I want to focus on something else. Like GOD, maybe? Having responded to God’s leading in this, I am so much more at peace with food, eating and my body already!

I think that, for this season, just as in my earliest years of this “Thin Within” journey, I have to set aside scales, charts, reports, graphs, numbers…I have to BE. I have to LISTEN. I have to REST. No more striving.

I went to the Lord yesterday and today. Instead of turning to my “quiet” time basket filled with workbooks, “how to pray more powerfully” books and other “aids” to make me “more effective” in my walk with God… I stilled my heart. No…I let HIM still my heart. I asked, “Lord, where do you want me to turn in your Word to hear from you?” Then I did the unthinkable…I waited… GASP!!!!

He wasted no time telling me something that surprised me… “Join me in Jeremiah 3,”came the whisper.

I obeyed–as if to walk through a gate of promise–and set my eyes on the page ordained for my heart in this moment and asked God “What, Lord? What do you have for me here?” Nestled in the midst of this chapter, He showed me this:

13 Only acknowledge your guilt—

you have rebelled against the LORD your God,

you have scattered your favors to foreign gods

under every spreading tree,

and have not obeyed me,’ ”

declares the LORD.

God beckons to me. He is merciful, not angry. But he wants me to quit trying to throw “godly” band-aids on a cancer. My zealous hustling and bustling spiritually has an appearance of godliness, but devoid of it’s power. How many bible studies and books can one really complete? If I fill in yet more blanks, will it make me more godly? The one who dies with the most filled in workbooks wins? No…

I must acknowledge that I am eating out of his will. I am living out of his will. I am pursuing that which is out of his will. Acknowledge your guilt he says to me. Quit trying to cover it up by more bible study, more doing, more avoiding.

Child, You have rebelled.

Child, You have not obeyed.



That is at the heart of this.

Child, I love you.

In fact, all of my frenetic searching and doing and performing is actually contributing to the very problem I hoped to solve. It isn’t my JOB to solve it, in fact. In Jeremiah 3 he spoke to me about that as well…

This, he does want.

Those years of my life that were eaten up by dysfunction…he will somehow redeem. This is a promise for my future. He wants me to continue this path, but with a stillness of heart…not a desperate attempt to make something happen, to win yet more accolades, or to really “get thin forever.”

26 You WILL have plenty to eat, until you are full,

and you WILL praise the name of the LORD your God,

who has worked wonders for you;

never again will my people be shamed.

27 Then you WILL know that I am in Israel,

that I am the LORD your God,

and that there is no other;

never again will my people be shamed.

Day 52 TLT Take Every Thought Captive

by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 1, 2009 | Blog

Rather than give a detailed summary of what is in the TLT workbook today, I am going to flesh it out.

Three things in this lesson:
1.) Take captive every thought and let Christ be the judge of whether or not the thought should be allowed entrance into the mind and heart. If Christ says no, reject the thought…but this must be done to see if CHRIST wants the thought in there. I can either take the thought captive or be taken captive by the thought. The passage is 2 Corinthians 10:3-6.

2.) It isn’t enough to just reject negative thoughts. We must also embrace thoughts that are godly. This principle is found in Philippians 4:8. Do my thoughts (or what I am reading, watching, etc…) pass the “Philippians 4:8 Test?” The idea being I will only dwell on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy. When it comes to rejecting negative thoughts, we have to also have something positive to think about…God’s Word provides that.

3.) Philippians 4:9 takes it a step further. Whatever we know to do, we are to DO it. This connects with the previous lessons.

This three step process will enable us to not be taken captive by lustful or greedy thoughts about food when we aren’t hungry. Or to allow ourselves be beaten up by the enemy when he accuses us.

And this is what I want to hash out here today…

This is very hard for me. Only a week ago (it feels like forever…) I obeyed what I felt the Lord wanted me to do and put the scale away “forever.” But this came at the tail end of a fasting of sweets which was in response to my reaction to having given up diet soda drinking (which I drank verrrry excessively).

But rather than throwing other “must dos” at myself in response to removing aspartame from my life, I should have *processed* what was going on in me when I removed the diet coke. That would have been a grace-filled thing to do.

While the caffeine withdrawals likely took only a few short days to weather through, the psychological and spiritual withdrawals from diet soda were much more severe and intense. I found myself gravitating toward sweet foods again.

So I fasted sweet foods. While I fasted sweets for about 10 days, I was at such peace…but when I allowed them in my life again, I found that a “dieting mentality” had crept back into my mind and heart. Subtly, my thinking had shifted from “all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial…I will not be mastered by anything…” to THESE ARE NOT permissible! THIS IS NAUGHTY! I am BAD! Followed by desperately rebelling against that rigidity…

At the same time, I knew there was one more stronghold in my life…that of depending on the bathroom scale. So I decided to remove it from my life. Do you see the desperation? I was throwing band-aids everywhere. Likely what I needed to do was *process* the removal of a significant thing from my life…diet soda. I missed that.

All of this was taking on a lot emotionally at one time. (This sounds so whiny and ridiculous to me…) I am not sure all of this at the same time was from the Lord. Certainly, I think he would have wanted me to process what was going on in my reaction as I came off of nutrasweet. I deflected really doing that. Instead I treated symptoms…fasted sugar. Adding more angst and emotional baggage, perhaps, to things that needed to be brought before the throne of God.

Ok, so where does that leave me today?

Today I pulled out the scale. (The voice says “Another failure…”) It reflected what I knew to be true. My eating is off kilter. I didn’t need the scale to tell me that, but I began to feel like NOT having a man-made number to attach to it at this stage of my journey was to be in denial.

I share this with such struggle…the accusations of the enemy have come to fruition. He laughs with glee. The scale actually says SIX POUNDS up. I need to confess this here…by way of keeping a lid on pride and by way of accountability. Given my accountability reports to my accountability partner, there must also have been a LOT of deception going on too!

This is where today’s lesson really comes home, though.

My response to this man-made arbitrary number (and the rest that goes with it) is deep sadness. Truthfully, it isn’t the number alone that makes me sad. It is the truth that my greed and DECEPTION has put me in the place that it shows up so quickly on the scale.

The thoughts that are now bombarding me for entrance into my life are all the same voices that the enemy has thrown at me for a couple of years now… “See? You ARE a fraud!” “You may think you have everyone fooled, but WE know the truth! The scale is finally proving it!” “You *are* a glutton! You ARE forever going to be a fat person trying to pretend she is someone else!” “Admit it! Give it up! You are a fake!”

These are the thoughts that are demanding entrance this morning.

The bottom line is this…the TRUTHS in my life are:
1.) I have been eating more than my body needs to be sustained
2.) Most of my eating outside of my godly boundaries has been sweet foods
3.) My physical body is beginning to carry the excess energy (By the way…before I got on the scale I knew this from the way my jeans were fitting…just a bit more snug…I didn’t really need the number to tell me anything!)

These are the TRUTHS.

In addition the following are truths as well:

4.) God is still God.
5.) I am still the Lord’s
6.) He is STILL doing a NEW thing in me right now!
7.) That which He has begun he WILL complete — His Word promises!

Going back to the steps outlined in today’s lesson in The Lord’s Table, then, step one is to surrender my thoughts to obedience to Christ. In this case, I must recognize that all the things that the enemy is whispering in my ear…they are LIES. So I will take captive each thought and bring it to God. He says “No…REJECT IT.” I will reject the enemy’s lies.

Step 2 then is to submit my thoughts to the Philippians 4:8 test. What is TRUE is vital here…so the list above is what I will rehearse in my mind today. Especially items 4-7 and related thoughts.

However, the truth is also that I have work to do relative to this whole nutrasweet dependency. Just because it is out of my life doesn’t mean I don’t have issues to deal with. It reminds me of addiction…often when you take the substance that is being abused out of a person’s life, they maintain the same behaviors, but with a different substance. Thus, the true issues aren’t dealt with.

God wants to deal with the underlying issues that motivate me to grab a hold of whatever it may be. He wants me to grab a hold of him no matter what! The only “substance” that I am to lean on is HIM.

Then thirdly, if I follow the lesson in TLT, I will DO what I know is best and right. For me, this has to include some ways of fighting negative thoughts today. So here is my battle plan:
1.) Gratitude blog today…I will write in it later today, but practice gratitude throughout the day
2.) I will get out my spiral cards and keep them with me today…bible verses are on them. I will work on memorizing a new one and review old ones I have memorized. I will pray the scriptures on them
3.) I will continue to pray every 60 minutes to reconnect with God (Soul Revolution the 60-60 experiment)
4.) I will keep praise music playing
5.) I will spend some time prayer journaling today…

I do plan on attacking the deeper issues as soon as TLT study is completed. My accountability partner and I will be going through the Hallidays’ Get Thin Stay Thin book together. (This book used to be called Thin Again and before that it was called Silent Hunger. It is a challenging book that looks at the underlying causes of our overeating (and other things)…it is what I need right now, even though I went through it some years ago…).

If I have a thought of “You weigh _____! You are a FRAUD!” I will combat that with, “I am more than a conqueror in Christ. God IS doing a new thing in me! I perceive it! I will fix my eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of my faith…” and so on.

So…how about you? Do you have a battle of the mind going on today too? What can you do to apply these three things:
1.) Take captive thoughts to obedience to Christ?
2.) Submit your thinking, your doing, reading, watching to the Philippians 4:8 test?
3.) DO something that will be a response to what you KNOW? (Phil 4:9)?

Join me, ok? I am praying for you and for me…

Day 47 – TLT – Running to Win

by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 27, 2008 | Blog

A couple of years after Michaela was born (I think this was about 1996), I had a serious flirtation with being a distance runner. I had never been a runner and because of some health problems that had derailed my obsessive fitness craze, I wanted to return to something just as obsessive (I guess) but without being able to compare my current “performance” with a previous one. Running was safe since I had never had even the remotest interest in being a runner.

During my flirtation with running, I learned a great deal about the Christian life–God used my training runs to teach me so much and when I finally ran the San Francisco Marathon, I took a little booklet with me that I had made ahead of time. Each page represented a mile. I had written down quotes, verses, and people to pray for on each page…so for that mile, I would use those cues to help me focus on something other than how miserable I was 🙂 and when I passed the mile marker, I would tear the corner off the page. It was an absolutely wonderful growing, learning experience.

I can fear starting things because of hating to “fail,” so even crossing the marathon starting line was a HUGE victory! The fact that I finished the marathon at all, made me the winner from where I sat! (Even if it was after everyone else had gone home! LOL!)

Today’s lesson brought up wonderful points from Hebrews 12:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 .

When I began training, I couldn’t wear my old tennies and sweats. Instead, I wore the lightest possible clothing that would do the job. The shoes had to be supportive, but light–well made as we were going to be running 100s of miles in preparation for the marathon.

Once I got into running, I would never have imagined putting the old clothes back on for an 18 mile training run…they were too heavy and floppy and would hold me back from being the best I could possibly be.

Likewise, these scriptures teach us to throw off sin and anything that entangles. ANYthing that could hold us back from being the best that the Lord wants us to be in this course called life.

Once I got to San Francisco, I would never have dreamed of trying to tackle the sometimes hilly marathon course with a backpack filled with books on my back, for instance. There are some things, that while not sin, are going to hold me back.

I am called to throw off all of it. Anything that even hinders me. This is one reason why I have chosen not to drink nutrasweet any more. I could see that it was hindering me. Also, this is why I have chosen to get rid of the bathroom scale…while not “sin,” it was a hindrance. I had to throw these things off!

Anyone who runs a race must not only throw off all excess weight and avoid anything that encumbers, but they must also have a well-defined goal. (TLT, p. 151)

What I fix my eyes, my hopes, my heart on…that will affect how well I run, how I persevere.

If a thought came into my mind to top off my dinner with a large milk shake I would obey the thought. I was literally a slave to my cravings. But now I am instructed to turn things around, to make my body my slave. In other words, I am to master my cravings, and make my body subservient to my spiritual desires to honor the Lord in all things. (TLT, p. 151)

Focusing our lives on Jesus will enable us to throw off all excess weight and anything that hinders, keep us from becoming entangled in sin, help us to exercise self-control in all things, enable us to discipline our bodies and make them our slaves. This is the heart of the matter, fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ. (TLT, p. 151)

The antidote to growing weary and losing heart is to look to Jesus, to consider Him, to focus upon Him and follow Him. If we consider Jesus Christ we will see that He did everything in His life on earth from a motivation to glorify God, and we are reminded to have the same motive. As we focus on Him we will see the One who endured hostility and opposition, yet pressed on, not turning back or giving in, and we are challenged to press on. As we contemplate Christ, we see Him endure suffering in His flesh to the point of shedding His blood for our sins, and we are reminded to endure, to persist, to persevere. This is the value of looking to Jesus. This is the importance of focusing on Him. If we look to Him, we cannot grow weary or lose heart and give up. (TLT, p. 151)

I want to finish this race. And I know that the only way I can finish strong is by focusing on Jesus, the one who is my example. He inspires and motivates me. When I consider all He has done for me, it seems crazy that I would not let go of some bites of food, or set aside something that hangs me up…for Him. He is so worthy.

Eating the Seed instead of Sowing the Seed

by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 2, 2008 | Blog

Do you ever wonder about why you have heard the message about freedom in your eating, freedom from being tormented about your body and all those things that you struggle with…why you KNOW stuff and feel STRONGLY that “Yes! This is the truth! I believe! I will do it!” and then still walk in defeat? Still don’t quite seem to flesh the thing out?

So many I talk with about Thin Within experience this. I know I did for years. Probably at least 6 years before things “clicked” I knew…really KNEW the truths that God intended for my freedom. Yet it took until 2006 for me to begin to walk in freedom.

Why is that? Why do we embrace it and believe it and then…don’t experience in our reality what God’s Word says we will?

In my Stepping Up study (by Beth Moore), she shares something really profound on page 81. She shares about how she and her husband went to Angola to do some relief work and how they were trying to take in the sights and sounds and smells of living death…starvation, malnutrition…rampant and overwhelming. A friend shared with them that one of the saddest things is that when seed is brought in to plant and harvest, the people of the villages respond to it by EATING THE SEED instead of sowing the seed. She shares how she couldn’t get this thought out of her head and realized that God answered the question above…that some of us eat the seed of God’s word. We are starving and ravenous…we see it as the truth and good and wonderful…and take it in as temporary satisfaction for our “stomachs” if you will. Instead of working it and working it and waiting and waiting….sowing the seed of God’s Word in our lives.

I know what she is talking about because I have done this precise thing. All that time I wrote with the Hallidays, had daily contact and help and support–had to basically write her God-given thoughts on the page for publishing…I “knew” it…I was “eating” that seed…but I wasn’t working it into the soil of my life.

It takes time. And we want instant results, instant gratification…So, if we don’t see results that are measurable (the bathroom scale often enough), we toss it out…we have eaten the seed instead of sown it.

It takes work. It takes faith. It takes belief…God can do these things in us. It requires patience and perseverance…we wait on Him to do it, yet somehow walk with him, get in the soil and do some dirty “work” in our hearts along with him…

If we don’t, we are like those starving people in Angola. Their need would be provided for much better in the long term if they would SOW the seed instead of eating it…Starving, the don’t know how to trust. How like that I am.

Lord help me not just to eat the seed of your Word and have the temporary “satisfaction” of a full belly. But help me, instead, to sow the seed into my life, to be willing to work it, trust, see the thing through…and experience the harvest that you intend the seed to bring. In the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.

Sometimes it is good to be VERBOSE!

by Heidi Bylsma | May 14, 2008 | Blog

Sometimes it is good to talk too much. Well, most of the time it isn’t. A fool is known by the abundance of her words…and…better to keep one’s mouth shut and have them wonder if I am a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt…and all of that! LOL!

But when it comes to my most recent descent into “That Place” (what I call living with an attitude and not submitting myself to the Lord in my choices), being a woman of WAY too many words has actually been a good thing.

Why is that?

Well, it seems like no matter where I turn, my own words, used to try to encourage other people, face me. In some ways, they have mocked me…but once I get over that notion (which isn’t what the Lord intends, but IS what Satan intends, of course!), I can receive what I think the LORD wants me to from the words that I have previously prayerfully offered to others. Funny how that is. God is amazing how he can do that.

Hello? Like for instance “Take this moment captive for the Lord!” “Don’t minimize the importance of THIS moment!” “God IS doing a new thing…even now!” and so on. The thing that has been going around in my head the most, it seems is that a moment of indiscretion–even an hour of indiscretion–while I don’t want ANY time that I am not surrendered to the Lord of course…well, even an hour of inappropriate–SINFUL–eating does NOT wipe out a full day of surrendering to the Lord!

In the past, back in the diet days, it sure did. You know, when you allot yourself so many calories each day…like say 1500, it sure seemed as though even if you had resisted the urge to eat all day long, if you “blew it” at night with a hot fudge sundae, then you would write off the entire day and say, “Well, I blew my diet today, I may as well just forget it.” The caloric amount was all that mattered. The heart choice to resist wasn’t valued.

With Thin Within, the HEART is the focus! So if I spend 23 hours taking captive my thoughts for the Lord and surrendering to His tender love, mercy, grace and will, THAT IS HUGE! (I love that 7 or 8 of those are when I am sleeping, but I tell ya…I COUNT THEM! LOL!). If only ONE hour is spent “blowing it”…that is NOTHING in comparison. All those other moments and hours are an investment in a transformed heart and life!

This is the thought that has encouraged me the past few days.

I think this is one reason why what the scale says isn’t the point of this. I know in my heart of hearts if I have lived a surrendered life and honored God with my body, my heart, my mind, my choices. So if the scale is up when I know I have been walking hand in hand with the Lord, then I know it is a quirky thing going on–maybe a test of my faith, in fact. If the scale is down when I know I have been living serving myself and my appetites (not physical hunger, but taste bud hunger or something else), then I can’t delight in that…in a way, this too is a test. Will I allow the scale to bring me a sense of satisfaction when the Lord is calling me to more?

Man-made bathroom scales are tricky things. Weighing every day is NOT a good thing! Like Judy Halliday says (or this is what I remember of what she has said)–if we spent as much time and energy focusing on the God-made hunger scale of eating 0 to 5, eating between the parameters of hunger and satisfaction, instead of the man-made bathroom scale, the extra weight on our body would likely slide right off!

So many things about this approach–Thin Within–dong things the way God directs, are OPPOSITE of what the world would say. The world says we MUST use the man-made bathroom scale to evaluate how we are doing on our “diet.” God says to trust him and hearken to his voice, letting go of any food outside of hunger/satisfaction parameters. He says to trust him that He is at work in our hearts, minds AND our bodies!

The world says we can’t eat this or that! It is “off” the “diet!” We can’t possibly be thin if we eat that! God says, I have made your body reliably…it isn’t the food that is the problem, it is the heart that wants more than the body needs to sustain life!

The world says that if you have an hour of bingeing behavior, then you have ruined the day and you may as well just forget the day and throw all caution to the wind–restart the diet tomorrow. God says observe and correct, take THIS moment captive. Each moment matters…all the moments we spent surrendering can NOT be negated or neutralized by an hour of sin.

I have seen that in the past week or more, that my mind has wandered all over the place and the world is sooooo ready to receive me back. YUCK! I choose to reject the thoughts of the world in this. I choose Christ. I choose freedom.