Ok…silly me. I thought that going home would produce flesh machinery. HA!
(Note: For those who don’t know, “Flesh Machinery” is that which causes us to be lured or drawn to food when we aren’t physically hungry. It is things that are in our emotional or habitual or even just mental programming that kick in like being on “auto-pilot”…like when a DVD is on, we go for the microwave popcorn or when Mom comes to visit, we begin foraging through the pantry for the chips…all without concern for physical hunger and satisfaction.)
If I thought going home would be tough relative to flesh machinery, it never crossed my mind how much rougher it could be not to even GET home!
Today, I got to the Tulsa International Airport and my flight to Dallas Fort Worth was …delayed…the airport in DFW was closed for weather. We got off the plane. Then they had a new departure time…we boarded again….then, the news came that the airport in DFW was closed ALL day due to weather! Oh my word! I am NOT a traveller and this is one reason why. Coming here I got scared out of my wits at DFW so I was thrilled that if I had to miss my flight home, that it was before I got to DFW. So, I am here with Jan another day. I sure had a lot of scary moments before I was reunited with Jan with my luggage in her car heading back to her house, though! I am a weather and travelling weanie! Both at once and I am a basket case!
My new flight will leave tomorrow about 5pm from Tulsa. I fly to Dallas Fort Worth and from there fly to Sacramento, getting in at 9:30pm or so.
Flesh Machinery…yes, there is a lot…the emotional turmoil of adjusting my mind to leaving my dear friend behind, psyching myself up for the travel (I hate to travel…have I said that yet?), the knowledge that my sister and mom and husband need me to take care of business with my Mom (many phone calls and emails since the last time I wrote about this in the last entry), feeling sorry for myself: “Lord, why did this have to happen?” (poor baby!), the disappointment/logistics about cancelling my Thin Within class tomorrow night since I won’t be there to lead it, oh golly gosh..I could write a million more things that I could complain about…all of which send me into an emotional topspin…wanting the REST of the chocolate bar (the big one, with almonds…the DOVE one…) that is over there on the counter!!!!!!!
So…instead of eating…inhaling…that mongo sized Dove chocolate bar (the one with the almonds that is open over there on the counter), instead of continuing with my list of all the reasons I am a basket case right now…I choose to take captive this moment (these moments!) and to give praise and thanks to God…
Thank you, God, that I am here with a friend who loves me instead of spending the night in a lonely hotel room in a city where a tornado could come from nowhere and eat me alive! Thank you, Lord, that my husband is a doll to be willing to stay with my kids, be homeschool teacher, Mr. Mom, care for the horses, dogs, and also try to do his regular job….wow, Lord. He is amazing. AND he has been trying to get the bathroom all fixed up while I am gone…I know he has gone to a lot of trouble, Lord…God, thank you that Daniel (my almost 16-year-old) is getting along so well with Mr. Shaun, our neighbor doing the tile work. What a blessing that is! I hope that they can connect on a wonderful new level. Lord, thank you that my Mom just called me. If she is nothing else, she is giggly and silly. That is a good thing (even if the ER staff think she has Alzheimers…). Thank you! Ok…Lord, I am PRAISING YOU for all the good things that you give. Thank you for Jan and her husband, Ali, and their wonderful hospitality. I love my friend. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Flesh machinery need not have the final word. Being controlled by the Spirit instead of all the “poor me” thoughts and other flesh machinery stuff….one moment at a time, taking captive this moment for you, Lord (and the chocolate bar doesn’t look quite so tempting when I praise YOU!).
I feel like the Lord wants me to show you…a friend with whom I feel some strange connection…my journals. Granted, not every single word of every single page…and probably not in order or with sense…but, well, there is something that the Lord wants someone to see.
I posted earlier today with joviality. Then I did a lesson that is wonderfully compatible with Thin Within–The Lord’s Table. Today’s lesson was on repentance. Oh…it was well-written and powerful and while the teaching is not new to me, the Lord used it to convict me powerfully afresh.
I can’t pretend I understand the connection with that and the journals. but here are two pages…you will have to go off the blog site to see them large enough to read…I hope that this vulnerability isn’t for naught. If God can take these tattered, shattered, broken pieces of my life from the past and use them to draw others…oh, Lord…so be it! The first is from Feb. 9, 1999. Click on it to see the page full size from Photo Bucket. The second is the facing page of the journal, written a couple of weeks later.
One friend asked me…what message do I share NOW. Is it the SAME as the one in the journal? Goodness. I hope it is clear from even a casual browsing in my blog here, that the message I share NOW, almost 10 years after these were written…THERE IS HOPE! GOD IS DOING A NEW THING…in YOU, reader…EVEN NOW! I share these journal pages because they show that I have been there. In fact, I was there for years. We don’t have to stay there.
What is the way out? I believe it is moment by moment, surrendering to the Lord. In the moment, taking captive our thoughts, our actions, our beliefs…and asking HIM to BE Lord in our minds that he will be Lord in what we CHOOSE to do NOW.
As Christians, we have the freedom to choose to say no to sin in the moment. When I wrote the journal pages that you see, I didn’t believe the significance of the moment. I was bogged down in all or nothing…and nothing was all I had…
I love receiving the comments from those of you who read the blog. It is so encouraging to me and I must say, I have to bow before God in humble adoration. I truly am blessed. Thank you so much for your ministryto me. If there is anything here at all that encourages you, it is proof yet again that “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
My friend, Lundie, just posted the comment on the left and I don’t know about you, but this really does boil it down. Lundie also included that making that once that decision is made in the moment, we let it go. Even walk away, get distracted. Do other things.
Thanks, Lundie, for ministering to me–and others–with your insights.
My accountability partner challenged me when she saw some “small” compromises on my hunger graph last week…could I string together seven consecutive days of eating 0 to 5 or between true physiological hunger and satisfaction?
She threw down the gauntlet. (I am pleased she did.)
Today is day 4 of managing this challenge. PRAISE you, Lord!
A few thoughts of things I am learning:
1. The little foxes spoil the vineyard (Song of Solomon 2:15)–the little compromises can sneak their way into our lives…and erode things. Enough of that! No more minimizing what can cut away at a root of holiness.
2. I have found that when I am committed to this, eating outside of these parameters just isn’t an option…period. How profound this seems to me.
3. The longer I have gone in practicing eating between hunger and satisfaction, the less obsessed my thoughts are with food. This is good news to many of us!
4. There is a brief moment of temptation. (There it is again…that MOMENT thing!) If I can just make a choice to set aside that temptation in the moment, to reject it…I have found that it passes. That choice is then followed by a number of other “brief” moments where the temptation isn’t present…and during those “brief” moments my heart is flooded with joy from the Holy Spirit because I made the choice to take that moment and thought captive and surrender in obedience!
Sounding the horn! Take THIS moment captive! Don’t be taken captive by the moment!
CHOOSE to make a FAITH-FILLED choice instead of a FLESH-FILLED choice!
One tiny moment, one tiny choice…MATTERS!
A day is built of moments and a year is built of days built of moments and a lifetime is built of years built of days built of moments….so capturing even ONE for the Lord MATTERS!
Thank you, Lord, that my husband is a doll to be willing to stay with my kids, be homeschool teacher, Mr. Mom, care for the horses, dogs, and also try to do his regular job….wow, Lord. He is amazing. AND he has been trying to get the bathroom all fixed up while I am gone…I know he has gone to a lot of trouble, Lord…God, thank you that Daniel (my almost 16-year-old) is getting along so well with Mr. Shaun, our neighbor doing the tile work. What a blessing that is! I hope that they can connect on a wonderful new level. Lord, thank you that my Mom just called me. If she is nothing else, she is giggly and silly. That is a good thing (even if the ER staff think she has Alzheimers…). Thank you! Ok…Lord, I am PRAISING YOU for all the good things that you give. Thank you for Jan and her husband, Ali, and their wonderful hospitality. I love my friend. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
