What is TRUE about you and about your body? It isn’t what the world says, what the media says about it. Not at all!
Here is a sound file that I hope will encourage you today. Feel free to download it and listen to it when you have a chance. You can even put it on your iPod if you want. Whatever works!
What do you think? Are you beginning to know that you have an amazing body? Not only are you God’s incredible creation, but you are also His dwelling place if you are in Christ! How might believing that–REALLY believing that–change how you view yourself and how you act?
Note: Much of the material in this audio was modified/adapted from Lesson 4 in Healthy Eating and Abundant Living by Allie Marie Smith and Judy Halliday and Thin Within (chapter 5) by Arthur and Judy Halliday.
I get so much encouragement from you all. Sometimes, you encourage me in your texts or emails. Sometimes in your comments here. I want to share some of these tidbits of encouragement with anyone who comes to the blog.
Last week, Michelle posted a comment that bears highlighting.
When faced with an “opportunity” to eat something–anything–when you are not hungry, but especially when a sudden “surprise goody” is made available, ask yourself this:
“If I eat that, then what?”
Will I only eat one (whatever it is)? Or will that send me down the path of eating even more? What will the rest of the day look like if I continue that way?
What if I were to, instead, invite God into this moment? Could it be an opportunity to grow in my intimacy with him?
Thanks, Michelle!
Adriane created another Sound Cloud file that I must share with you!
We have to hang in there. We *can* do this. We *can* train ourselves in godliness. Adriane points this out beautifully!
I am soooooo excited! I can hardly STAND it! I have something to share with you! (WITH permission, too, I must add!) OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!!
I have had the pleasure of coaching a wonderful lady…named Adriane Sims. She is just a doll! You will love her, too.
Like all of us, she has struggled, but this lady is a fighter. I watch her and I think of the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10:
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
One day this past week, Adriane was really, really discouraged, like many of us. At first I thought “Oh, no! She is going to throw in the towel!” Do you know what? This precious lady got back on the horse. Not only did she get back on the horse, but now she is leading the CHARGE! Here is a sound file that she created for us. I am so excited to share it with you!
How about you? Will you make a commitment to God that even when you slip it will NOTspell disaster? That you will keep on keeping on? What if you were to read Adriane’s (or a similar one YOU write!) commitment to God each day once, twice, or maybe three times? Would it make a difference?
NOTE: When I share a sound file like this, I feel a little weird. I know that my way of relating to God is probably different than most. I feel like I have let you into my secret prayer closet when I share files like this. I have prayed about sharing this and feel like God is in it, so I will step out in faith and trust that if you think I am weird, a nutcase or a Jesus Freak that someone somewhere is going to be ministered to, encouraged, or something…to make it totally worth whatever it might cost me. LOL! 😀
So, with that disclaimer aside…
God never intended food to torment us. When the thought of eating scares us because we know how we are, let’s take a proactive, intentional stand. Let’s renew our minds. Let’s trade the lies we have believed…including the lies we believe about ourselves when we do mess up. Let’s make a plan to do things differently. Let’s re-establish a boundary and then stick with it in the strength God gives. And let’s pray!
This is a sound file (if you are a subscriber, you may need to visit the blog site to access the sound file) that shows an example of how I renew my mind about how I think about food. This is intended to be an example, but you can also pray silently along with this. I hope that you will join me in continuing to renew your mind with truth. If this idea is a bit foreign to you, it comes out of Romans 12:2 and our bible study of Barb Raveling’s material (if you missed it, please find the list here).
Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
We all have beliefs that subtly erode our values, boundaries, and godly goals. Sometimes these beliefs are about ourselves. Sometimes they are about God and his care about us. Whatever it is that you need to renew your mind about, it is totally worth the time and effort it will take to do it. If we don’t, we might find that something we value, rely upon, that is foundational in our life, slips off and out of our lives. We don’t want to experience the depth of this sort of loss. We want to guard against it! Wisdom would require that we be proactive. Romans 12:2 says we don’t want to do as the world does and just let whatever happens happen. We want to allow God to transform us and he will do this by renewing our minds.
Relative to our Thin Within journeys, the sorts of thoughts we may have might be:
I won’t ever get this weight off…and even if I do, I won’t keep it off.
I am such a failure. I never can string together two good days of 0 to 5 eating.
I simply MUST have ice cream each day! If not ice cream, then cookies or brownies or…something to “treat” myself!
I MUST be a size 6. If I can’t get down to a 6, then I am a failure.
God doesn’t care about my weight/size. If he did, he would remove this struggle from my life.
I keep letting God down. He is so disappointed with me.
NONE of these are truths! NONE of these reflect the way GOD thinks!
Here are 10 ways you can renew your mind so that He can transform you from the inside out!
4. Go through a favorite book of the bible–for me it is Ephesians–and pull out all the truths that are there that can refute the lies you tend to tell yourself. Make index cards, type up a document, make a graphic image, write out post-it notes…so that the verses and the thoughts that go with the notes are EVERYWHERE that you may struggle. If you struggle in the kitchen, post them there. If the dining table, post them there. If with the scale, tape them on the scale. If the mirror, tape them on the mirror. If in the car, tape them on the mirror. You get the idea!
5. Create a God List. That is explained here and in this video:
6. Use the God List to have a praise-fest or Praise FEAST! That is explained here.
7. Memorize Scripture. You can use this iPod, iPad, or iPhone app to do that–or just the good old fashioned way of index cards and practicing going through them!
8. Start and update a gratitude blog. Mine is here if you want to have a look (it needs updating).
9. Create a “Renewing My Mind” play list on your mp3 player or iPod. I have suggestions at my other blog here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
10. Ask a friend to hold you accountable for your thinking. I recently asked Barb, who is my accountability partner, to hold me accountable for something I clearly need to renew my mind about. It doesn’t have to do with eating so I won’t bog you down with the whole story here, but I will be posting about it at my other blog sooner or later.
The point is, we don’t want to let whatever happens happen to our thinking. When our thoughts and feelings are given free rein, they take us into crazy places! Places where lies seem like truth!
Instead, we want to allow GOD’s thoughts to be our own thoughts. In His Word, he tells us what he thinks. The more we bathe our minds with Scripture and truth from Scripture, the more we will think like he does. That is what we WANT! 😀
Which of these will you try…today? If you are already routinely renewing your mind is there a new approach you can take to doing so? Is there a new thought that God might perhaps want you to renew your mind about?
