What Are You Hungry For?

Image Source: iStockPhoto

Image Source: iStockPhoto

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. – Psalm 84:2

Years ago, there was an advertisement on television featuring Andy Griffith and his big toothy grin. Smiling ear-to-ear in his inimitable way he asked, “What are you hungry for when you don’t know what you are hungry for?” His answer was always “Something on a Ritz® cracker!”

Have you ever wondered what you are hungry for? Sometimes, we may think true physical hunger is rearing up, shouting to be satisfied. We mentally run through the litany of foods we like to eat and nothing sounds good. We calculate what we will feed our hunger.

If we are quiet, we may hear:

“Me. You’re hungry for me. Let me feed you.”

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. – Psalm 73:26

We were created for intimacy with God. Our hearts cry out for it. For many years we have answered the cry with Ritz® crackers. Or chocolate, or pizza, or cheese enchiladas. We have misinterpreted the cry of our hearts for intimacy with God and fed our spiritual hunger, physical food.

Psalm 42:7 says “Deep calls to deep.” From the depths of our hungry souls we cry out for the Lord.

Try this: If you are hungry, but can’t figure out what you are hungry for, rather than tearing open a package of Oreos or Ben and Jerry’s ice cream or whatever is your biggest temptation when you aren’t physically hungry, try instead , opening up God’s Living Word of truth. Try calling upon the Lord of Heaven and earth. Believe His promises to you:

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! – Isaiah 30:18

I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. -Hosea 11:4

Oh Jesus, I know that when I don’t know what I am hungry for, it is actually YOU I crave. I pray that I might wait for you and experience your abundance and joy flood my soul. Amen.

Where’s Your Focus?

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Image Source: iStock Photo

Do you ever wonder why you can’t beat this? Why you keep doing yet another study about food and weight? Why you can’t just SHAKE loose of this challenge, this relationship with food, this weight?

The answer may be as simple as focus.

Let me illustrate:

Right now, don’t think about green gorillas.

No, really. Don’t think about green gorillas.

You aren’t, right? 🙂

Sit there for 30 seconds without a single thought of a green gorillas.

You aren’t thinking about green gorillas, are you? 🙂

LOL!

Ok, be honest…what are you thinking of?

If you are like most, if someone says “Don’t think about green gorillas,” that is precisely what you think about. When we try NOT to think about something—either a food that is off our “diet foods” list (when we were on diets), or a food we want to eat and are free to eat, but when we are not hungry—we can’t help but to think about it! Diets tell us what we can’t have and can’t think about. The more we try not to think about or not to want these things, the more we think about them and want them until we become overwhelmed and give in, sometimes after we have already eaten the dieter’s version of whatever it might be.

Read Colossians 2:20-23 in your Bible or below:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world,

why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:

21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?

22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.

23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship,

their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,

but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Please take a moment and underline descriptive phrases in this passage in your bible that are used to describe the mentality that Paul is confronting. Two are done for you.

Now write down what you underlined in the passage above:

  1. _____Rules________________________________
  2. _____Destined to Perish with Use_____________
  3. _________________________________________
  4. _________________________________________
  5. _________________________________________
  6. _________________________________________
  7. _________________________________________
  8. _________________________________________

Which of the above descriptive words and phrases could also be used to describe a prescriptive way of managing weight or, which of the words above fit in describing “diets?” Circle any that apply.

What can’t diets do according to this passage?

Did you notice all those “do nots” in the passage? When told DO NOT, what do we do? Do you find it true that, often, you end up doing the very thing that you are told NOT to do! (Just like not thinking about green gorillas?)

Most often in worldly programs we are challenged to merely be “self controlled.” With these programs, we have often found ourselves eating foods that, while “good for us” don’t match up with what we really desire—they don’t satisfy. We have tried desperately to conform ourselves to an outward standard while resentment builds deep within. We are told not to eat this or that and, often, we give in to what we wanted in the first place.

God’s way of freedom from the chains that bind us, the coping mechanisms that constrict us, the addictions that hinder us, is for us to experience freedom from these outward restraints, to have our hearts and minds renewed and to transform us from the inside out! As our hearts are transformed, our choices will be as well. Moment by moment, our choices, when built one upon another, will radically alter externals—our appearance and behavior. We can walk in freedom!

This is why I have been crowing about renewing our minds for so long (and I will continue to do so!). We have to be willing to do the work it takes to change the way we think.

God has created us to experience joy in life—even in something as mundane as eating! We can praise HIM for his marvelous creativity in making mangos, asparagus, ice cream sundaes, and cheese enchiladas. Eating was never intended to torment us, but to bless us.

Dieting has caused us to be focused on ourselves, on our food, on our weight, on our size…on everything ME.  Some of us have “done” Thin Within the same way we have done dieting—with the focus all on ME, MYSELF, and I. The focus has been on the externals…on my appearance, my behavior, my food, my exercise…ME. In embracing these approaches, however, we have done nothing to change our hearts in a positive direction. In fact, often, we come out of our experiences with these programmatic ways of handling food with an even deeper fixation on food or our bodies.

This is forming and shaping our hearts…not just our bodies (if physical changes happen at all). Do we really feel that the way we are becoming more self-absorbed is God-honoring and worth it as long as we lose weight? I hope not!

Let’s be intentional…and choose to take a radically different approach. Let’s allow our King to have our heart, our focus, our desires. He is going to do something major in our lives so it stands to reason that we want to have our focus in the right place.

How About You?

Are you ready to “do” this differently than you have done diets or Thin Within in the past? Do you want this to really be the last time you have to “start over?” Are you ready to do the work that is involved? If so, I strongly encourage you to go to the Renewing of the Mind Bible Study page here and do these studies (again if you have done them already). Do that and/or do a search on the blog for “Truth Cards.” I believe you will be SO blessed as you work on the way you THINK and on where your focus is. When we stop thinking ME ME ME and start thinking GOD GOD GOD some amazing transformations begin to take place. Honest. 🙂

I’m HOPEless and EMOTIONAL and I JUST WANT TO EAT!!!!

(Week 10 Summer 2013 Renewing of the Mind Bible Study)

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Image Source: iStockPhoto

Since January 11th, I have been going through a tough trial. It is taking me deeper and making me more desperate for God than ever. This has affected my eating. I feel like I am FIGHTING to do the right thing so often. And sometimes I just stop fighting…until I start fighting again…until I stop fighting again…until I…well, you get the gist, I bet.

I know that God peels back layer upon layer of stuff in my life…like the layers of an onion. Like Eustace in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Aslan had to tear off the reptilian skin from Dragon-Eustace, ripping him clean of his scales…the pain of it all was necessary for him to be free of what bound him. Having gone through the transformation, though there may have been a grieving, there was also relief.

I feel a bit like Eustace. Will I welcome God’s new thing that he is doing, even in this? Or will I tenaciously cling to food as if by going through a hardship, being so sad, beaten up emotionally, etc., I deserve “this one vice?”

So, this week’s topic of emotional eating, coupled with hopeless eating, is something that is near and dear to my heart. Please don’t for one minute assume that what I share with you here is theoretical in my life. Far from it. Chances are, I have been in or AM in the trenches along with you. Or BOTH. Like with this week’s study topics, it is both. I have seen the truth of living these principles, but I need to be reminded.

 Monday

Do you ever feel driven to eat? You give in and you are still driven to eat? And does it go on until you are just too miserable to keep going or all the food is gone? What causes this? For many of us, it is overwhelming emotions. I think sometimes we are trying to literally make ourselves so miserable physically so that we can’t FEEL our emotions any more. Or maybe we are trying to punish ourselves for something…like for “being so weak” that we feel hurt, or sadness, or pain, or anguish or guilt. Using food for these reasons won’t solve the problems. We know that with our heads, but we keep eating anyhow.

  1. Visit Barb Raveling’s Emotional Eating Bible Study page. What does Barb say is true in her blurb before the “Journal” section?
  2. Can you add to your truth cards anything from this preliminary section?
  3. Can you journal about the situation that is causing you to want to eat? Right now, take a few minutes to think back to the last time you ate out of emotion. What was going on? How did you feel? What did you do in response to the situation? If you ate, what did you eat? How did you feel as you ate? How did you feel after you ate? Did eating help?
  4. Consider using some of Barb’s renewing of the mind tools if you aren’t already.
  5. Read the “Journal About the Situation — Not the Food” and add any truths to your truth cards. NOTE: I love Barb’s material, including her Freedom From Emotional Eating workbook, but it *does* have dieting vocabulary in it. Please be aware of that if you decide to purchase it!
  6. If you didn’t already, visit Barb’s other site at this link and go ahead and do the activities on that page. It is very helpful in moving through emotions that might lead you to eat outside of 0 and 5 boundaries.
  7. If appropriate, add more truths to your truth cards.

Tuesday

  1. Visit Barb’s Emotional Eating page again.
  2. Complete the Bible Study questions.

Wednesday

  1. Visit Barb’s Emotional Eating page again.
  2. Complete her emotional eating questions at the bottom of the page with an experience you had recently with emotional eating in mind.
  3. Add anything to your truth cards that you glean.

Thursday

I love what Barb says. This is NOT hopeless as long as we keep fighting lies with truth. That is KEY! We have to be willing to do the hard work!

  1. Visit Barb’s hopeless eating bible study page. Consider that Barb would write in her journal even after she had broken her boundaries. She shared with us in our first class that even doing this afterwards, she found it transformed her! Are you willing?
  2. Complete her Hopeless Bible Study eating questions.
  3. Can you add any truth cards to your deck?

Friday

  1. Visit Barb’s hopeless eating bible study page again.
  2. Complete her Hopeless Eating questions for your journal at the bottom of that page.
  3. Can you add any truth cards to your deck?
  4. Recap this week: What are you learning about emotions and how to take command over them instead of allowing them to lead you to food?

Week 9 ~ “Why Should I Care?”and “YIKES! I Don’t Like My BODY! HELP!”

Image Source: iStockPhoto

Image Source: iStockPhoto

This is a stream of consciousness video…but maybe there is something here that can encourage you. Obviously, I have my work cut out for me this week! Do you? LOL!

Carelessly grazing as we walk through the kitchen, dipping into the candy dish on the office-mate’s desk, or sucking on mints just because they are there…these are little examples of Careless Eating. Careless eating is what often leads to that sudden panic… OH MY GOODNESS! I have been eating TOO much and I must GET SKINNY NOW!

All those moments when we said, “It’s just one bite” haunt us when we reach for a pair of pants hanging in our closet that we haven’t tried on in a couple of months. As we go to slip into them we wonder if our “just one bite(s)” will have cost us anything.

How does God feel about “just one bite?”

Is it possible that “Just one bite” is how we got in trouble in the first place? Either God has called us to the boundary of 0 and 5 or he hasn’t. If he has, does “just one bite” have a place?

How might those “just one bite” moments affect your appearance? Will this matter to you?

Monday

1. I haven’t asked you to do this in a while, so it is time. Are you committed to 0 to 5 eating? Do you believe it is from God for you? Why do you feel convinced in your heart that this is so? Write in your journal your thoughts about this and the statement “I know 0 to 5 eating is a boundary from God for my life” (or something similar). Date it and sign it if it will help. We want to recommit to this!

2. Visit Barb Raveling’s Careless Eating Study at her blog. Can you relate to her illustration about the alcoholic at all? Barb says: We can learn a lot from the life of an alcoholic. Although we can’t say not even one bite, we can say, not even one bite outside our boundaries. What do you think about that? Journal your feeling about that. What do you think of her statement, “The minute we think it’s just one bite, we are in danger.”

3. Do all the Bible Study questions that Barb has for us on that page, including looking up the bible verses. Journal what you discover.

4. Add any truths you have come up with to your Truth Cards.

5 Are you willing to take the challenge? TELL US! 🙂 Get an Accountability Partner. It isn’t too late!

Tuesday

1. Return to Barb’s Careless Eating Study at her blog for part 2.

2. Barb challenges us to incorporate the “Careless Eating Questions” into our lives so that when we are tempted to eat outside of our 0 and 5 boundaries we evaluate by using those questions. You can do these now, even if you aren’t experiencing temptation. I recommend going through these questions today and journaling your response.

3. Jot down any truths you have come up with for your Truth Cards.

4. Share with us here in the comments any thoughts that God has laid on your heart, truths you have added to your cards, or new insights (or old ones) that you got from the questions or the bible study.

Wednesday

1. Visit Barb Ravelings Appearance Eating Bible Study”. How important is it to you to lose weight? Ask God to show you just how fixed your heart is on the physical results you want. What if you could have God in all his fullness and beauty, but not be the size/shape you want? What then? Would he be enough?

2. Can you relate at all to my confession in the video? How so?

3. To what source are you looking for your happiness?

4. Is there any living you are waiting to do until you look a certain way? What would God have you do…today?

Thursday

1. Visit Barb Raveling’s Appearance Eating Bible Study again.  Complete Questions for your Journal numbers 1 through 5 and journal your answers.

2. Share here anything that God impresses upon your heart. What you share may encourage another person who visits and reads the comments–even if they don’t post. Consider it a ministry to others that you do in faith! (It ministers to ME! LOL!)

3. As you consider a person in your life that you feel requires you to be a different size or shape, it might be helpful to do some forgiveness work. When I do forgiveness work, it includes “telling on them to God.” Think of being a colossal tattle tale…you are God’s precious little child running to him to tattle on whoever it is. Pour it all out. What did they do to you? How do you feel about it? Tell your Heavenly Abba (Daddy) and then leave it with him. Ask him to help you to forgive…to choose to trust it all to His care.

Friday

1. Visit Barb Raveling’s Appearance Eating Bible Study yet one more time. 🙂 Complete questions 6 through 10 and journal your responses as time allows.

2. What truths can you add to your truth cards…or, if you aren’t yet creating a deck of truth cards, what truths is God speaking over you?

3. Share with us here how you feel God leading you to approach your desire for weight loss (Barb’s question 10).

4. If you haven’t done so as a part of any of the other questions in today’s assignment, you may want to reaffirm your confidence that God is calling you to 0 to 5 as your primary boundary. What are the secondary boundaries he is calling you to? Write these down to affirm them and date it.

5. How are you doing with your summer study?

6. How are YOU? 🙂 I care!

Week 7 – I Don’t WANNA! (Revisited) Indulgent and Social Eating

Image Source: iStockPhoto

Image Source: iStockPhoto

Here we are again. At the office party or in the kitchen after bible study and NUTS if the food isn’t just TOO tantalizing. It seems to have a magnetic pull on us.

We tell ourselves NO… we WON’T give in THIS time, but nevertheless before we know it we are laughing with the others, enjoying “fellowship” while holding (and eating from) a large plate of food.  And it isn’t about hunger. It is, quite simply, about I WANT IT AND I WILL EAT IT BECAUSE I WANT IT. We might even have the thought that “It isn’t fair that everyone else should get to eat and just because I am not hungry, I don’t get to…”

This week we turn our attention to two related types of eating, “Indulgent Eating” and “Social Eating.” Often, we just don’t feel like following our boundaries. Often, it may be because we are in a social situation and everyone else is laughing, having fun, so it is “only fair” that we should get to as well. Barb’s studies this week bring some very important thoughts to the forefront.

I am breaking this week’s assignment down into 5 mini-assignments. Of course, you can do it any way you choose. 🙂

Monday

1. Please visit Barb’s website and complete the Indulgent Eating bible study.

2. Select at least 3 statements from the first section under “This is what I learned” to add to your truth cards. Even better if you add all 5! Share with us which three you added. If you haven’t started a deck of truth cards yet, you can see a post about it here. Evaluate if this might be a tool that could be used by God to bring victory at a level you haven’t previously known. Is it worth it to try something new?

3. Use Barb’s journaling questions about Indulgent Eating to write statements that you can add to your truth cards. Here is an example:

The first journaling question, I use to frame my answer and to develop a statement that can go in my truth cards. Barb asks, “If you were to eat ‘what you want, when you want’ 100% of the time, how much do you think you’d weigh?”

My response:

“If I were to eat what I want when I want (in the quantities I want) 100% of the time, I would be at least 100 pounds overweight. I have been there before and I could get there easily again.”

Continue to use Barb’s Indulgent Eating material to frame statements for your truth cards. Share with us in the comments what you added to your truth cards today.

Tuesday:

  1. Complete the rest of the journaling questions, including looking up the Scriptures that Barb supplied.  Which verse means the most to you or did God use to encourage or challenge you? Share with us.
  2. Answer Barb’s question: Is your life better or worse with boundaries?
  3. What percentage of the time do you feel like you live as if you don’t have boundaries?  Why do you think this is the case?
  4. Complete Barb’s Indulgence Eating questions. Again, use any of your answers that fit to create new truth cards. Share here any truths that you feel led to share so that others can be encouraged as well.
  5. Respond to Barb’s question: Do you think your best chance for happiness is to do what you want when you want? Why or why not?

Wednesday

  1. Visit Barb’s social eating bible study page found here. Please don’t be put off by the “salad vs pizza” dieting scenario. Instead, imagine the more likely situation for you, as a Thin Within participant, to be in a situation where everyone else at a party or get-together is eating four pieces of pizza when you either aren’t at a “0” yet and have to wait to eat or you are at a “0” but it takes only one piece of pizza to get to a “5.” The rest of the scenario she paints for us plays out. The situation is totally ripe for overindulging. You finally get this feeling of being “ripped off” and give in and eat along with and as much as everyone else.
  2. What is the lie that Barb says is present in the back of our minds?
  3. What is true about the notion that “Life should be fair”?
  4. Respond to Barb’s discussion of “The Fairness Line.”  What do you think about what she says?

Thursday

  1. I want to join Barb in encouraging you to recognize the lies that our society feeds us. The lie that “Life should be fair” saturates everything! What are ways that you know you have bought this lie? Can you persevere in renewing your mind with truth about this today? This week? How will you do this?
  2. How are things going on your renewing of the mind plan? Maybe it’s time to recommit to your plan established in week 2! If you don’t have an accountability partner yet, please consider getting one today by visiting the Accountability Page and posting there. If you have had a partner, but haven’t been in touch, consider getting in touch with your partner and evaluating what you will do going forward or dissolve your partnership and let one another loose to find another partner.
  3. Complete Barb’s “Social Eating Bible Study” section at the bottom of the page.

Friday

  1. At the end of the Social Eating Bible Study, Barb asks: Think of an upcoming social gathering where you’ll have to control the way you eat if you want to follow your boundaries. If life is about indulging your desires, will you have much to be thankful for in that situation? Explain.
  2. If life is about loving God and others, will you have much to be thankful for in that situation? Why or why not? Explain.
  3. What is God laying on your heart today about Indulgent and Social eating? Are you happier when you live by design or desire?

Follow Up Comments

I know that the summer is filled with opportunities to enjoy friends, family, times in the sun, lots of fun! You can recommit to spending 15 minutes a day allowing God to change your thinking–even now in the middle of the summer. What do you think? I know lots of us started this study filled with promises to ourselves. If your heart is kindled to want to let the fire flare up again, why not just dive back in this week–today, even? There’s no need to throw in the towel until a new study starts. Don’t buy Satan’s big lie!