“Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”
Luke 10:40
The month of December is packed with crammed schedules, stretched budgets, and the ever present assortment of sweets, alcohol, and all-night shopping. Whatever your particular temptation, it will be waiting for you in abundance. When we add in the visits from family and far away relatives, there is a potent brew of stress swirling around us. We can be so easily distracted by it all, and miss the good gifts God wants to give us this year.
If you tend to get a little (or a lot!) stressed out by Christmas, you’re not alone. Christmas is an emotionally-charged holiday. A Consumer Reports survey found that 90% have at least one thing we dread about the holidays. Dread is a strong word; it implies a gnawing fear about something we have no control over. Let me share my top three things I am tempted to dread, and then I’ll share my secret for stressing less.
1. Body: At Christmas, I often visit with relatives whom I haven’t seen all year. Many times, other women will want to talk about weight and diets. Sometimes, other women might even comment on my weight. Even if they are complimenting me on “winning” the war with the scale, I am immediately tempted into pride or fear or even resentment. Any discussion of weight or diets is like sticking a finger into old emotional wounds. No matter what is being said, it can stir unpleasant feelings.
2. Money: Obsession tends to shift around in my life, looking for a home. If I stop obsessing about weight and food, I can easily start obsessing about money. And during the holiday season, the extra spending makes me feel uncomfortable. I am often tempted to blow my budget, just like it was a diet. “Oh, well,” I might think. “I’m spending so much on everyone else, I might as well blow the whole budget.”
3. Expectations: I want my house to be decorated and clean. I want everyone to be happy and the kids to get along. I want to feel the magic of Christmas in my heart from the moment I wake up until I collapse from exhaustion at night. The problem is, I don’t have a set designer, a food stylist, or even a maid. I do, however, have PMS and occasional insomnia. I just can’t ever seem to meet my own expectations. And neither can Christmas. Sometimes I secretly wonder what is wrong with me…
It would seem that Christmas could give me, and all of us, plenty of reasons to overeat! Christmas can be emotionally-charged because there are so many opportunities to be aware of the aching hole in our hearts. And when we try to fill the hole, we often fill it with the wrong things. Spiritual bondage is defined as filling the hole in our hearts with things that only make the hole bigger.
So how can we navigate the season with joy? How do we fill our hearts with what they need? For me, the secret is thinking small. The bigger my fears, the larger my problems seem, the smaller my focus must become. In particular, I am focusing on 0-5 eating, and here’s why:
Living within the boundary of 0-5 eating seems to pay extra dividends during the holiday season. With all the triggers and temptations around me, staying within safe boundaries eases all my stress. The comfort of this one godly boundary soothes my nerves. It’s like my heavenly Father draping His strong arm around my shoulders.
0-5 eating pays dividends all year long, of course. But during Christmas, 0-5 eating keeps me focused on Jesus. As I focus on following His lead in this one area, all the other distractions and dreads seem to fade into background noise. Christmas, with all its necessary preparations, becomes a quieter, sweeter experience. What comes to me as a test of faith (giving up that extra piece of fudge!) becomes the key to release from all my other my burdens.
How about you?
What is it about the Christmas season that seems daunting to you today? Have you ever noticed that keeping one godly boundary, even imperfectly, seems to make the whole day more peaceful? How could the godly boundary of 0-5 eating bring you comfort and peace this Christmas season?
This week’s lesson was perfect for me personally this week. Instead of condemning myself for my mistakes (which I shared here at the blog yesterday), I have been able to press on and in closer to the Lord and receive his acceptance, love, forgiveness and encouragement. Thank you for your kind emails. I appreciate it very much!
You know, legalism lurks in the most innocuous of places in our lives. If we aren’t careful, we can be taken by surprise…and even taken hostage. This week in Lesson 5, we had a chance to evaluate this and expose the legalism wherever it was found. Grace is there–abundant and free–ready to wash over, in, and through us! Like a raft floating down a river, let’s rest and let the current of grace carry us along. This isn’t a “devil-may-care” attitude. We know that Titus 2 says “This same grace that brings salvation teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions…” But we also know that God has promised that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1). We embrace the truth that God has demonstrated his love before we ever have done a single thing that could possibly have “earned” it. In fact, we could not earn it. Period.
In the video below, I share with you as if we were sitting in my living room (or a hotel room in Houston, Texas, as the case may be!).
There is an activity on the bottom of page 89 called “Walking on the Tightrope of Perfection.” I couldn’t actually do this with you for obvious reasons. 🙂 So I used video clips of young women I accessed on a service I subscribe to. When you get to the first one, I am sure you will see why I say doing this actually was so hard for me. In fact, it broke my heart. It was really hard for me to do this activity–even in this format! I can’t imagine how I would feel if we were together trying to do the activity as it is written. I hope that it somehow ministers to you–even with it’s “shock value.” :-/
What creating (and editing) this video did, though, was to help me to ask God to make me sensitive to where legalism exists in my life at all and where it is expressed to others. If someone–like my daughter, son, my husband–was on the tightrope (that you will see in this video), would the way I live be more congruent with saying those things? I hope not! I fear that the answer is yes.
And then I also wonder if I do that to myself as well. If I am the girl on the tightrope, do I shout at myself some of the awful things that I say on the video to the girl trying desperately to perform, to walk on the tightrope while balancing something on her head, using one foot to move a hubcap on the line, holding the pole around her shoulders–all without “messing up?” As you watch the video, you may evaluate if you do it to yourself as well!
Anyhow, if you watch the video below, please know during the tightrope section that I was VERY uncomfortable with that. Don’t hold it against me. It is a dramatization only!
Enough with the disclaimers! LOL! Before you begin the video, please read Psalm 139 out loud. Ask God to continue to help you to know the truths of the Psalm full well.
Please share in the comments section below:
From your study this week How does God want to lavish his grace upon you?
How have you lived under legalism rather than grace?
What does the verse 1 Corinthians 6:12 mean to you?: Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
What did you think of the tightrope illustration/activity in the video? What have you learned? How can you apply what you have learned to your own life?
Do the journaling questions on page 90 and share the answers to any of them that you feel comfortable doing so. For those of you without the book, here is the activity–you can join us! Make a list of your favorite foods. Do you allow yourself to eat all of these foods? Without mentally counting up the calories? Why or why not? Which foods do you ever restrict yourself from having? Are any of these foods ever stumbling blocks for you? What does God’s grace seem to indicate?
I hope that evaluating your life, thinking, speaking for ways in which legalism might be present has been helpful for you. More, I hope you will join me in recommitting to being people of grace. Jesus paid the price of all sin on the cross. All shame for sin was paid for too. One benefit of that payment on our behalf is that we might continue, forever, in the grace of God as an ongoing pardon, provision, power, and presence (of God) in our lives!
The material this week is INCREDIBLE! I am so excited to share it with you!
This week we get a chance to look at our lives and evaluate where legalism may lurk. Legalism isn’t always obvious, but it’s affects are. Like a wind, you can’t always see it, but you can see the impact it has, so we want to invite God to show us where we have bought in to the performance trap, as this is a sure indicator that legalism may be having its way with us.
This week we will see the difference between legalism and grace and one way we will do that is by becoming well acquainted with grace in many forms. This is where this study really gets GOOD!
Do you ever evaluate yourself based on if you ate 0 to 5 today? Or based on if you lost weight in the past week? (Hopping on the scale may indicate you are caught in a performance-based mentality.)
If you are living in a way that how you feel about yourself is based on your performance in some way, you probably feel discouraged and exhausted on the one hand or prideful and energized on the other. That may not sound so bad, but there is no stability on that pendulum! We swing from one extreme to the other. This is what Thin Within calls “The Path of My Performance.” We want to get off of that path and enjoy what God has in mind instead!
Let’s cease striving and know that he is God. Let’s lean into his grace and let him carry us along. In fact, the approval issue has been dealt with. We have God’s love, approval. Let’s tell ourselves the truth: God has lavishly poured grace all over us.
Have you ever thought about diets and how they have so much in common with Legalism? In fact, diets are rooted in legalism. If we have a long dieting history, we may have brought legalism with us (even subtly) into our Thin Within experience.
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such 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. Colossians 2:20-23
Let’s get the legalistic mentality out of our Thin Within/HEAL journey.
This week, you will get to look at the self-imposed rules you may still have in your life, left over from your dieting history. You may even be combining a dieting approach with 0 to 5 eating. Let’s dissect that mentality this week, too.
Let’s not buy the lie that victory can be bought with our self-will!
God’s perfect love casts out fear and allow us to embark on a freedom filled way of eating and living. Yes, inform your conscience. Turn to the Lord and do it for his glory.
Homework assignment:
Complete the Personal Study portion of Lesson 5 – An Aisle of Grace
Ask God show you where legalism lurks in your thinking and living. Share with us here what God has shown you already about this or as he shows you this week!
Ask him to help you to sense his approval and love for you that is based on Christ’s “performance” at the cross, rather than on your ability to “wow” him!
Connect with your accountability partner.
Check in here and share how God is at work through the study this week.
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