by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 9, 2008 | Blog
I have been struggling. Writing about TLT lessons and experiencing a passion in my heart about the Lord and this journey in the wee hours of the morning…and by evening, throwing my care to the wind and being rebellious. It isn’t about the food…it is about the heart. I have been saddened by what has been revealed to be in my heart.
The enemy also accuses me. “You are such a hypocrite and fraud! You spout off about ‘holiness’ and ‘humility’–but LOOK at you! You are arrogant and prideful and your attitude PROVES that! Why don’t you just admit that you will NEVER be all those things that you claim to be and just give it up?”
The battle is very real. In fact, I thought about not sharing today about TLT lesson because of it. But this is the VERY lesson I *should* share. It is so profound, deep, and life-changing. (Even now I battle hearing the voice of the enemy “Yeah, like *your* life has really changed, you liar!!!”)
I will ignore it…2 Corinthians teaches me I have divine power to demolish strongholds. I can tear down anything that stands against the knowledge of God and take captive any thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. So right now I choose to do so.
TLT – Day 8 – The Cross
Here is what I wrote in my journal about this day in The Lord’s Table material.
—-
This is a powerful lesson. Lord, please help me to experience all you have in mind. Let it settle in my mind and make it through to my experience. I want to live, breathe, and apply your Word to my life.
First, Mike Cleveland defined overeating: “Overeating is defined as continuing to eat past the point of receiving all we need to sustain our lives.”
I have shared this thought with others before and found that people sure don’t like this definition. When I want to define it differently, I am:
“invent[ing] a god of my own making, to my own liking, a god that tolerates sin and overlooks continual indulgence of the flesh. I am very lenient with myself…” (p. 24 TLT)
I don’t want to create god in an image I can “tolerate” or who tolerates me! I want to be in relationship with the one True God!
When I gave in to the temptation to overeat in my past, I allowed a wall to be built between the Lord and me. I resented the Lord, in fact, for insisting that I surrender this to Him.
The Lord offered himself on the cross, though not *just* for the forgiveness of sins–which is HUGE–a BIG deal!–But also so that I might no longer wander away from Him–so that I could stay close to Him.
1 Peter 2:25 says “Rof you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
I no longer need to stray. He has provided me a way to stay close. Thank you, Lord.
“The purpose of Jesus’ death is two-fold: first, that He might remove my sins from me and second that He might heal me from going astray and bring me back to God. It is God’s work to remove our sins from us, it is GOD’s work to heal us from going astray, and it is GOD’s work to cause us to return to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.” (p. 25, TLT)
I am reminded that I have been called for the purpose of suffering willingly like Jesus. (1 Peter 2:21)
“There is no other way to solve the sin problem than Jesus. There is no other way to be reconciled to God, to be changed from his enemy to His friend, to cease from going astray, than through Jesus.” (p. 25, TLT)
The author states that it is vital to see that overeating is a sin. We can’t hate ourselves into change as one Thin Within participant said so eloquently…but we can hate our SIN and must hate our sin!
“We must begin to detest [our sinful behaviors] with all of our being and to think of them as sin against our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in order to truly turn away from them and find victory. If we minimze them, we will continue to flirt with them and treat them as no big deal. Begin to seek the Lord about giving you a heart that hates all sin, including your sinful eating habits.” (p. 27, TLT)
Summary: Jesus provided payment for my sin and a way that I can no longer go astray. He did this by the cross. As I ask Him to do so, he will help me to detest my sin of overeating and enable me to turn from it and stay close to Him. God provided Christ out of his compassion and love for me. I want to embrace all that He has done through the cross for all I am worth!
Application: Have I asked the Lord to help me to detest all my sin? Do I agree with TLT conclusion that overeating is eating more than I need to sustain my life? Or do I think a few bites more than that is ok? Who is my authority in this? Am I willing to be humble about it? Am I willing to hear what God may clearly say about it, or do I resist? How will I choose to live differently in light of these things?
Lord, please help me to be open to whatever the truth is about this issue. If my mind and heart are closed, please show me. Whatever YOU define as sin in my life…that is what I want to detest. Lord, please work this in me. Thank you for the cross. You have poured out compassion, grace, mercy and love through offering Jesus on the cross for me. I don’t have to fear calling overeating a sin. I am not condemned! Jesus took the condemnation for me that I might be saved through Him. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 1, 2008 | Blog
How interesting. I looked at my entry from last year at this time. You will find it here.
It has begun…HOLIDAY FRENZY! 🙂
Even early in October, Sam’s Club was hauling out Christmas decorations and wrappings, suggested packaged items for gift giving. OH MY! It is that time of year again!
This time of year can be wonderful and horrible! I am just sure that God didn’t create snack size Milky Way bar morsels in the “Family Pack” size to TORMENT ME! How about you? How did you fare through this past week with candy abounding?
And this is only the beginning! The HOLY days are upon us! I hope I can remember they are HOLY days…and not justifications for me to indulge my flesh!
I have to laugh. This year, I did NOT buy one single solitary bag of candy. HUGE VICTORY! I didn’t even think about it! This is proof that God has been at work because left to my own devices I would do what I have done almost every other year!!!!
For instance, two years ago, I justified having a few bags of candy in the house because “What if there was a trick or treater at the door and I had no candy?” Never mind that we had gone the entire previous 4 years without a SINGLE knock on the door! I simply had to have the candy “for the trick or treaters.” HA!
I shared this with my accountability partner….that two years ago I kept dipping into it…quoting myself truisms about being free in Christ and so on…the fact is, all things are permissible, YES, but not all things are beneficial! How many 0 to 5 meals could I REALLY justify with “Friendly Size” Butter fingers as the main course? 🙂
When I realized that I could not stare down the candy and come out the winner, I made a beeline for the toilet…to throw it away! It didn’t even occur to me that it might clog things up! I just knew that if I put it in the trash at home, I would, at some point, if my past record is any indicator, plunge headlong into the garbage can to retrieve it at some point…and eat it anyhow! Have you ever done that? So have I…many times. What is so awful is that then the family thinks how noble and good I am for throwing it away…they never saw me retrieve it from the trash! I would sneak it into the bathroom and eat it there!!!! So two years ago, I had to had to had to throw it down the toilet! VICTORY!
Last year, I was tempted to buy it, but said no to the flesh. YAY! WE DO NOT GET ANY TRICK OR TREATERS! 🙂
And it is with humility that I say that this year, I didn’t even think of Halloween candy until my accountability partner and I were talking about it in email. God has done a HUGE work in me! To take me from what I was to what he is doing in me now! THANK YOU, Lord!
It is interesting to note other contrasts between last years post on October 31st and this year. The horse I was worrying about then and whether or not I should have him put down…well, this is us two days ago:
He is in training at my trainer’s place. He has been doing so well! Yes, winters are hard…and this one may be no exception, but this year, I have inquired about the two of us getting involved and volunteering with some therapeutic riding organizations. I can’t wait to see what happens! We have gotten some favorable responses so far. If we can do that all winter long, keeping him a bit active, maybe he won’t be so miserable and arthritic.
Last year in the post, I lamented about Daniel being such a liar and how worried I was about his future. Daniel has been transformed! He is confesssing sin, praying incredibly authentic prayers, reading the word, asking forgiveness of those he has wronged…even admitting when he hasn’t been truthful (and typically these are so mild that it is astonishing given how calloused his heart used to be!). God has been doing some AMAZING works in my life over the past year.
I PRAISE YOU, LORD!
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 10, 2008 | Blog
I guess naming this blog entry “Humbled” is definitely a misnomer.
I can’t truly be “humbled” until I bend my knee. Which I haven’t…yet.
I know it is imminent, but I am busy having my fit, thank you very much. Sometimes I *want* to be miserable and I will thank anyone and everyone to stay out of my way and definitely NOT to remind me of all the things I have spouted off about here on my blog (and elsewhere) about *gratitude*.
Isn’t it “interesting” how we spout off ever-so-arrogantly about something and then discover–lo and behold–we don’t live what we have spouted off about?
Right now I don’t even want to think about that…Instead, I will just say that it is a sorry case of irony that I named the previous entry “Some habits are hard to break.” It was about a binge that didn’t really happen.
Well, this one did.
What is UP with this?
For months, I have considered finding or making up a recipe for peanut-butter, granola, almond slice cookies. Yesterday, I went into a bit of a tizzy about some things that happened. Got careless with my eating in the afternoon and evening. Wait…let’s be honest. It wasn’t “careless.”…it was intentional and rebellious. I got mad at God, if I boil it down.
Today, I continued my tizzy fit. I didn’t plan to, but I did. So by 10am I had enjoyed raw peanut-butter, granola, almond cookie dough…refridgerated it for 2 hours only to cook them up and have cookies for lunch and for mid-afternoon snack…when was the last time I felt a 0? About 10am just before the raw cookie dough which was absolutely wonderful, I might add.
Nuts.
What is this about? It is about my two biggest issues…things I thought I had dealt with again and again…only to discover there is yet a need. More forgiveness work…Mother again.
So what can I say to someone who might be reading this blog who looked for encouragement by visiting? Well, I know this…this is a temporary setback. Even a “naturally thin person” who had been thin all her life might have episodes like this. So I will NOT, decidedly NOT…allow it to define me now or tomorrow or any more moments.
Shameful behavior doesn’t have to be given the “right” to determine more shameful behavior.
God is more powerful than my past…whether it was a past of 5 minutes ago, 5 years ago, or 5 decades ago. I will choose to believe the truth–that God will determine my present and future. My past behavior will not. PERIOD.
How about you? Are you, like me, right now…choosing to MAGNIFY something that chaps your hide? Something that sets your emotions into freak-out, hyper-drive mode? Are you making stupid decisions (like about eating) based on this stuff?
So after I go take a hot shower and kick the dog (just kidding about that part–though she deserves it)–and after the family and I sit and watch an Andy Griffith Show rerun on DVD…I will try to take time to be still and know that God is God…and, perhaps, to magnify…to choose to FOCUS ON and MAKE BIG…the blessings God has showered on my life.
With an act of my will…I will choose….
by Heidi Bylsma | Jul 22, 2008 | Blog
There is a play on words going on in the title of this post. “God doesn’t count.”
I don’t mean “God doesn’t matter,” because of course He does! He is EVERYTHING that matters!
What I DO mean is, He doesn’t count! He doesn’t say “1, 2, 3, 4….” and so on.
–> GOD DOESN’T COUNT YOUR SIN(s)
Do you believe that?
Or do you think “I have stuffed my face again. I keep doing the ‘sin repent sin’ cycle thing…and I know God has had it with me…It is only a matter of time before he says ‘That’s it. NO MORE. I am THROUGH with you!’ “
If you are convinced that you can out-SIN God’s love, kindness (which leads us to repentance), then ask Him to help you believe Psalm 32:2 a which says:
Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him…
You see? God doesn’t COUNT.
He can out-love, out-forgive, out-kindness anything you can possibly throw at him.
He doesn’t stand up in heaven with a tablet, making a list and checking it twice to see if you have been naughty or nice…and…suddenly, do a second take…
….Oh no!! Horrors of HORRORS!
………”No! That sin, right there…that ONE sin…is ONE too many! No more forgiveness, no more pardon! No more kindness, no more long suffering! I count ONE TOO MANY SINS against Lisa…against Lou…against… ________ .” (Insert your own name there…)
Further on in Psalm 32, we read:
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD “
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
David knew what it was like to struggle with starting a day with good intentions…to begin again, and again, and again…only to cave in to temptation. Instead of hiding from God, he tell us acknowledging his sin, confessing them…well, it didn’t end badly. God wasn’t counting his sin.
Instead, God forgave.
He keeps forgiving.
Jesus paid an exhorbitant price so that forgiveness could be constantly, freely extended to you…no matter how *many* your sins. If we insist on believing that God “has had it” with us…then we are sucking the life right out of the cross of Christ. We are saying that the death Jesus died has its limits…that it isn’t sufficient.
Do we *really* want to say that?
Let’s believe! God doesn’t count. When we begin again, we really do begin again…fresh start, clean slate…
1 John says God is love and 1 Corinthians 13 says that love keeps no record of wrongs done. So, I have to figure…then God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.
No, God doesn’t count.
(If you wonder if this blog entry is peddling “cheap grace,” I want to re-state that Jesus paid with his life…There is nothing about grace that is “cheap.” We are challenged not to go on sinning intentionally, willfully so that grace may increase…however the bible also tells us that if we claim we are without sin we lie and God is not in us…So, I receive David’s admonishment in Psalm 32. I seek hard after God and when I DO sin, I confess it and stand cleansed…forgiven…my sin is not counted against me…all because of the high price paid for me to have this privilege. I don’t trivialize it…I bow in reverence and submission…and welcome every possible benefit that has come to me through the extreme sacrifice Jesus offers me…)
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 30, 2008 | Blog
Have you ever heard the song by Nicole Nordeman called “Mercies New?” That song was going through my mind this morning. I don’t really know much of it except the chorus, but the chorus goes like this:
Your mercies are new every morning
So let me wake with the dawn
When the music is through or so it seems to be
Let me sing a new song, old things gone
Every day it’s true,
You make all Your mercies new
I planned yesterday to finally, FINALLY go on a horse ride again. It has been at least three weeks, what with all the loose ends I was working on before leaving for our vacation and then being gone for 8 days. So, last night I hooked up the horse trailer, set out my riding clothes and set the alarm for a 5am wake up. The horses could eat, I could have my quiet time and still arrive at the trail head by 7am so I could get home by 9am. Since Breezy, my most reliable “steady-headed” mount, is likely to be out of shape after such a long lay off, I figured an hour to hour and a half ride would be long enough for him.
I literally woke with the dawn…before, in fact.
Even before I got out to the trail with Breezy I could feel the ever-so-slight changes in my heart–the edge in my spirit being sanded away by the Spirit of God.
What edge? Hmm….Well, you see, in spite of all my spouting off here and elsewhere of how “gratitude changes things,” or “we must deny self,” and whatever else, in between making lo-o-o-ong lists of things I am thankful for my “Gratitude Blog” and shooting off my mouth about it, I have nevertheless been allowing anger and resentment–bitterness–to build in my life. This always always always results in disordered eating for me.
This is the first time since November of 2006 that I have felt so MUCH yuck in my life that I haven’t dealt with as it comes up. A lot of new stuff cropped up within the past couple of weeks, I guess. I keep shoving it down, shoving it down. And…numbing with food, too, I think. I knew that a new situation and the woundings I have felt through it had to be offered to the Lord. Yesterday, on the hour long drive to a friend’s house, the Lord and I went through it in a lot of detail…and I prayed and chose to forgive…but it isn’t that easy, sometimes. Like a monkey on my back, it clings!
Not only that, but some new challenges with my son have touched off *that* old issue for me, too, (my resentment of his autism). Everything has been festering, I guess. Put these emotional struggles and my resistant heart together with a needy kid at midnight and, well, I woke up early yes…with the dawn, yes…but instead of worshiping God, I was tired, cranky, and doing ANYthing BUT singing gratitude and praises to God.
To add insult to injury, I made myself step on the scale before dressing and it confirmed the condition of my heart (which I already knew…)…the body is up 5 pounds since the last time I weighed. I guess all that crusty hardness I have allowed to build up on my heart weighs quite a bit. My attitude has been ROTTEN. I have had moments of tenderness and obedience, yes. Moments where I walk away from temptation and have denied myself. That is true.
But lately, I have had a LOT more moments of angry eating…and in my pride, I have minimized the significance of the moment, this choice. I can make a flesh-based choice or a Spirit-filled choice. I have been making a lot of flesh-filled choices, one on top of the other…mostly about what attitude I will cling to…choosing to allow my heart to harden, harden, harden. Then, when I have eaten outside of godly parameters I have insisted in my pride that “I can TOO have this food. I can do what *I* want.” Ugh…
That is the person who “awakened with the dawn” this morning. That is the person who poor Breezy had to cart over hither and yon this morning. I even had an attitude toward Breezy as the last time I rode him, he was not at his best. I approached even Breezy this morning just like I have been approaching everyone… “YOU OWE ME.” (For the record, Breezy will typically have NONE of that! LOL!)
Eeek.
God’s mercies are new every morning. The trails were quieter than usual. We live in a small town, but the trailhead is near where two country highways come together–a “hub” of morning commuter activity. For some reason, the traffic noise carried the *other* way this morning. The sun was bright, the sky gorgeous cerulean blue, the birds calling…it was an amazing morning to be on a horse–a horse who was AMAZINGLY giving me his heart and soul…and mind, thought *and* his feet today! He was a perfect angel.
Normally, my spirit soars and I literally sing out loud. Today, I was feeling so grumpy that I didn’t want to talk. (I was REALLY grump!) I prayed in my spirit about how I was feeling about things…and the nasty, hard edge, was being rasped away, bit by bit by the Spirit’s gentle work…
Breezy was going at such a nice and steady walk that we got all the way to my favorite “lake” (actually, just a large pond). There, I was greeted by a coyote who rushed across the path…what a beautiful coyote, too! Normally, they are so scrawny out there, but this coyote had a lush thick coat in spite of the time of year and how most mammals have shed their coats… On the pond, sat a merganser (I think!) a pair of mallards, and a beautiful Great Blue Heron beat his massive wings in the sky just overhead, having been startled from his early morning feeding ground. A rabbit scurried from berry bush to berry bush, hiding in the thicket. Breezy, as always, kept his head. One of my other horses would likely have jumped out of his skin! 🙂
As I looked around, enthralled by the beauty of the morning, even the greens of the trees and the fields, the poppies, the wild flowers…all of it…the colors all seemed much deeper…and thousands of variations of each color. The quails calling to one another in the briars–issuing their warning cries…the three pair of Canada Geese sitting in the marsh. I know their goslings were hiding. (Isn’t it cool that they mate for life?)
So many blessings met me there…so many mercies. If I could but drink it in…but it is like getting a sip of water from a fire hose…too much, too many…
Yet here I am…in my hard-hearted state…talk about Grace. Grace met me on the trail today. Mercy flooded my heart.
God’s kindness really DOES lead me to repentance…so that is what I am here to do. Not to proclaim to you what *you* should do. That is between you and the Lord. Today, I confess, instead, what God has moved me to do and why. I choose to let go of all my anger, bitterness, resentment. I choose a humble heart. I choose to let go of “my will,” “my rights,” “my way,” “my food,” “my schedule….” I choose to forgive. I choose to be wounded, if necessary. If I can know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings and that means being hurt by those I love, I will know all the more closeness with Him as He teaches me forgiveness which flows from the cross.
Lord, all of it is yours. May I do only that which you want. My life is yours…
