There are times when I feel such frustration with myself—the struggle that Paul shares in Romans 7 about the very thing he doesn’t want to do is that which he keeps on doing and the good that he wants to do he doesn’t. There are times when I am frustrated by others or my circumstances. Times when I feel despair and such a lack of hope. At times like these, I wonder how I will ever see my way clear. Hope is elusive!
It is times like these when one thing…and one thing alone…changes EVERYTHING for me.
In fact, the biggest changes in my life—my eating, my other stronghold struggles, my relationships—have happened when I have integrated this one thing into my life.
It’s praise.
I believe that so often those of us who struggle with eating and eating disorders have an extreme case of self-focus. I know I do when I am left to my own devices. Dieting definitely contributed to me being this way…and sometimes, over the years, I have turned Thin Within into being less about honoring GOD and exalting him in all I do into being .all about me, my food, my hunger, my body, me me me, my my my.
This doesn’t result in anything but more despair and struggle.
When I move my focus from ME to the Lord, it is amazing what happens.
We were created to worship him, to exalt him. When I am doing what I was created to do, my spirit soars, hope floods even the darkest parts of my mind and heart and I experience a change…now. There is something wildly wonderful about exalting my Creator, my God, my King.
This week, I have been struggling with some circumstances in my life and I was reminded ever so lovingly by my Heavenly Father that I hadn’t been praising as much. So, I recommitted to this as a daily practice. In fact, as part of the “Set Your Timer” Challenge, I praise! How awesome is it to praise God—even if ever so briefly—for a moment every hour!
I recorded one of my praisefests in case it can encourage you as you do your own. As I listened to it, I realized that you can actually tell that I am experiencing a lifting of my spirit as I go farther on.
Can you develop or add to a God List (this post at my other blog tells you about it if you haven’t seen me talk about it before) and then use it for your own praisefest? If not this, then how about opening to a favorite psalm and giving it a shot? 🙂 Just ask the question, “What is God like and what does He do for people?” and then say back to God what you find!
Have you been tempted to throw in the towel and just say FORGET IT to this entire boundaries/renewing the mind/losing weight/having a healthy relationship with food project?
It is totally normal to feel that way.
This is the 12th and final week of our Renewing the Mind Bible Study and the truth is…it IS hard to stick to your boundaries. If it wasn’t hard to stick to your boundaries, they probably wouldn’t be boundaries. Just think about it for a minute. If you don’t have any temptations to go into a certain store at the mall and spend up your credit card, you don’t need to have a boundary about that store (or the credit card)! If you don’t feel tempted to overeat shrimp scampi, you probably don’t have a boundary to give shrimp scampi a wide berth.
We establish boundaries because we know that we are likely to venture across a line or to welcome outside forces in that would influence us in a way that wouldn’t be best for us.
So, of course it is hard! We are training ourselves which implies that, left to our own devices, we would behave differently than we know we should.
Barb does a great job of exposing a lie that we want to RENEW OUR MINDS ABOUT. That lie is this:
Life should be easy.
Think about it for a minute. Do you have a feeling that you will only follow through if something is fun or easy? If you get tired of working at something, maybe you believe this lie that life should be easy. God never has promised us that life will be easy. In fact, if we read the Scriptures there is much there that speaks to us about being diligent, persevering, hanging in there. If life were meant to be easy, I don’t think these exhortations would be in Scripture!
Monday
1. It’s that time again! Evaluate your feeling about 0 to 5 eating. Has God called you to 0 to 5 eating? Are you convinced in your heart he has? If you have written this commitment in your journal previously, review the dates and entries when you were convinced that this was so. How about now? If you are convinced today, add a statement reflecting that conviction and date it with today’s date.
2. Visit Barb’s blog page on “Losing Weight is Hard.” Read her introductory material.
3. Complete the “Life Should Be Easy” bible study on the same page.
Tuesday
1. Looking at yesterday’s bible study, what are some truths that you can add to your truth cards? Take some time to do this and renew your mind with truth!
2. Visit Barb’s blog page again at the same link. Please remember that Barb isn’t a Thin Within participant and don’t be put off by any “dieting” jargon that you see in her material. Complete her “Dieting is Hard” questions.
3. Are there any additional truths that you can add to your cards? If so, take some time to do so now.
Wednesday
1. Visit this page here at this blog. Take some time to read the introductory material and to watch the video on that page.
2. Can you list some situations that you have been in that are similar to what I describe? What upcoming situations might you face this week that fit this description?
3. What are some truths about situations like these that you can possibly renew your mind with?
Thursday
1. Visit this pageagain. Complete the “Preventative Eating Questions” on that page. (When asked in the questions about “now”, just insert in your mind a recent experience when you have done this…or if you are currently facing a situation where you are tempted to “preventative eat.”)
2. What are some of the possible solutions that God might want you to consider? Are you willing to use any of his solutions? If not, why not?
3. If you are not willing to use any of God’s solutions right now, please take some time to review your thoughts from Monday, Question #1 where you evaluated your commitment and God’s leading to 0 to 5 eating. Following boundaries IS hard, but if we are unwilling in these moments to do what we can (work!) to do so, when do we really expect to be willing? If we only follow our boundaries when it feels good, how often will we follow them?
2. If fear isn’t something that fuels your preventative eating, how about if you evaluate what IS? Then create a bible study to share with us here so we can all benefit! What other emotions might possibly fuel the desire to eat outside of 0 and 5 in anticipation of not being able to get near food?
3. What truths can you add to your truth cards today? Take a few minutes to add two or three.
What’s Next?
If you made it through this entire study, then you deserve extra KUDOS! We started strong, but many of us got swept away by the fun, freedom, and busyness of summer! In January, I will likely lead a Thin Within workbook study here at the blog. I will do so with a renewing of the mind focus. Start saving your $$ for the workbook packet (about $50 on Amazon) if you don’t own a set. More information to come later this fall, but for now, just know that I will continue to provide support here at the blog (as I have been) with a study launching the first week in January 2014!
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!
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 Studyagain. 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.
When I was a young girl, if a boy had my heart, I would write his initials and mine inside a heart. Putting this declaration on the front of my school folder or book-cover (made with a brown paper grocery sack) seemed to somehow make my intentions more intense–more true–more powerful.
I have never had my initials carved on a tree trunk that I know of, or a marriage proposal engraved on a tree trunk, though twice I have been proposed to by water–once by the river (by the man I married) and once at the California coast (by the man I didn’t). Both men knew that I wouldn’t take favorably to carving the proposal into a tree trunk (unless the tree was already dead), I suppose! LOL!
Though now, I suppose I might look at the declaration of love as more intense, more meaningful, more powerful had it been carved into a stately oak or poplar tree. True confessions! It certainly would stand as a monument to refer back to later in the marriage, wouldn’t it? A great way to remember youthful longing and dreams for what could be. Sigh! 🙂
I want to urge you again…evaluate if eating 0 to 5 is something that God is calling you to do and then if you are convinced–convicted–in your heart that it is, jot that truth down and then date it so you have it as a touchstone, a point of reference, to return to when you waver. It is a declaration of your intent!
Barb Raveling has asked a challenging question at her blog and, today, I ask you: “What is Your Commitment Level?”
Are you committed to this for now…are you “trying on” 0 to 5 eating and, as long as it feels good, you might keep at it?
Are you not quite even to that point yet, but only just now considering trying 0 to 5 eating?
Are you pretty committed–as long as it doesn’t take any more work than sticking with a diet?
Or are you committed as long as the scale shows results right away and every day?
Are you committed to 0 to 5 eating because of some deeper reason than weight loss? Maybe because you are sure God is calling you to moderation and you know this is the path he has for you no matter what?
Are you committed so that even when you fall off the horse you are going to get back on again–for the rest of your days on this planet?
As you can well imagine, the willingness to work at 0 to 5 eating will vary depending on the commitment level and that commitment level may be affected by if you are sure God has called you to it and what your commitment level to God is!
Several people who are convinced that this is God’s call for them have shared with me that they consider the commitment to 0 to 5 eating similar to the commitment in their marriage–they know that it won’t always be easy. In fact, sometimes, it might be downright UG-LEEEEE! They know that at times they may want to just throw in the towel as that would be easier. But they also know they just will never quit. Period. End of conversation. It is a non-negotiable.
While it is definitely possible to “over spiritualize” everything in our lives, including our eating and use of food, I also think that when you look at significant events in history in the bible and how many of them had food as a pivotal part of the scene, it certainly seems to be something that God values. We need look no further than the third chapter of Genesis before we see that a lack of commitment to godly boundaries relative to food had dire consequence!
Thoughts for Consideration:
1. How about you? Have you sensed the 0 to 5 eating is something that God has called you to? Jot it some place that you can record it with the date. If it helps, draw a big ol’ ink heart around it! 🙂
2. What is your commitment level to 0 to 5 eating? Refer to one of the options mentioned above or come up with your own and jot it down. Evaluate if you are happy with your commitment level or if you want to “woo” a greater commitment to moderation in all things relative to eating. Journal about this.
3. If you want to “woo” a greater commitment to 0 to 5 eating, you might consider creating a truth card (or a list) of all the benefits of 0 to 5 eating. On another truth card, you can list truths about dieting (don’t forget the truth that dieting DOES work to help lose weight, but include the other truths, too!). Another card, you could list truths about eating whatever you want, whenever you want, in the quantities you want. Give these lists of truths some careful, prayerful consideration.
4. You may need to go even deeper. Commitment to anything is pretty empty if a commitment to God is weak. Where do you stand relative to your relationship with Jesus? Are you willing to go wherever he calls you?
