Has your sense of this truth been cultivated this past week–as never before? I hope so!
Are you renewing your mind with the truths gleaned from the class Facebook page, the lessons, the Sound Cloud or YouTube files available for you? The blog has boatloads of information for you, too.
Onward we go to plunge deeply into one of the most amazing truths that is found on the pages of Scripture–that you are God’s chosen dwelling place on this planet.
I share a bit about that in this video:
Video Questions:
1. Can you identify with the lie that I mention is common (00:43)? How so?
2. What was the price that God paid for you to be his dwelling place?
3. What are three truths about you from this video that you can renew your mind with this week?
4. How might really believing that your body is God’s temple now affect you?
5. What is the significance of the fact that my body is not my own? (5:30)
6. What is a fundamental belief (actually a lie) that we tend to hold? (6:39)
7. How can you, practically speaking, renew your mind?
8. Consider adding some of the truths in this video to your deck of truth cards as mentioned in 09:10. Which ones will you add to your deck?
9. How will you use your truth cards this week? (What times of day, how many cards, etc.)
10. What are the 5 truths that summarize (12:00) the video?
Renewing the Mind – Pressing On
Last week, we began the process of renewing our minds. Romans 12:2 tells us we are transformed not by gritting our teeth and eating between physical hunger and physical satisfaction. That is all well and good, but if that is all we do, we will revert to old behaviors when the first trial or stressful situation hits.
Instead, we are transformed by the renewing of ourminds. I mentioned in Lesson 1’s video that we would be going through the workbook this time with a different focus. I hope you have been using Barb Raveling’s book, I Deserve A Donut and Other Lies That Make You Eat or the iTunes app by the same name. These resources, though optional, are indispensable. If you don’t have it yet, please get the workbook kit, Rebuilding God’s Temple.
Trade Book Assignment – To Be Completed by January 20th
Again, from the deep dark recesses of my hard drive 🙂 , I bring to you this week’s Thin Within Book Study Guide (Lesson 2) for those unable to get a workbook.
Workbook Assignment – To Be Completed by January 20th
1. Read, highlight, mark Lesson 2 on pages B18 – B22 or listen to the audio file of Lesson 2 at Sound Cloud. Discuss it here in the comments section below this post or at our Class Private Facebook Group Page.
2. Complete the exercises for Lesson 2 on pages B24-B28. Use your discretion about the optional exercises on pages B29-B30.
3. Continue to add to your “God List.” Here is a sample beginning of a God List. Here is a video about it if you have some extra time (I did share the link last week here and on the FB page):
4. Use your God List to have a “Praise Fest” or “Praise Feast.” Find out more about that here. You can find a playlist of PraiseFests here.
5. Use the entries for Day 7 through Day 14 in the Temple Toolkit. You can use it to write your praise-fest down or to write down the attributes of God that you are aware of that day. Some people prefer to use their journals instead of the Temple Toolkit. That’s fine, too, of course!
6. Have a look at this file: Renew Mind – Class Affirmations These are a list of some of the things our class members have said…TRUTHS that they are using to replace lies they have been believing for far too long. You can write these and other things like them on your spiral bound set of index cards. (I hope you have gotten some index cards by now and are using them!)
7. Continue to eat when you are hungry. Select any food you desire. Some of you are ready to begin to discern which foods make you feel energized! That’s great! We consider those “Whole Body Pleasers” and we will talk more about those later. If you know your body feels best when you eat beneficial foods, then enjoy!
8. This week, try to hone in on what a “5” is for you. If the entire hunger scale thing feels too complicated or difficult or confusing, please just use this simple test: Hungry? Not hungry? Eat when the answer to the first quest is yes and stop eating (or don’t start) when the answer to the second question is yes. This may simplify it enough to make it doable.
9. Interact here in the comments or at the Facebook group. I would love to hear what God is doing in your life. What new thing are you seeing in your life emotionally, spiritually, or physically? Won’t you give God glory and share it with us?
How About You?
How did the first week of our journey go for you? What is God impressing upon your heart? What questions do you have at this point? How can we best serve and encourage you?
And we are OFF! Let this year be LIT up with the HOPE that comes from letting Jesus do what he does so well…redeem, transform, and love. Let’s let him redeem us and the years the locusts have eaten. Let’s let him transform us from the inside out and let him love on us. We will open ourselves to the whole kitten-kaboodle! Let’s RUN the RACE!
Yesterday we had our first webinar. Find the recording for the webinar here. If you are a group leader, here are the Orientation/Intro Webinar Group Questions. Thank you to Allison Mitchell for writing them for us this week!
Here are some thoughts I have about this upcoming study overall and the focus we will have. Also, I share some thoughts about this first lesson on HOPE:
Video Questions:
1. Do you have a desire for transformation like I mention in the video?
2. What are the three things that will saturate our study of the workbook together?
3. What unique experiences, wisdom, and support do you have this time as you go through the workbook?
4. What “Little t” truths do you need to TRUMP with God’s “Big T” truths?
5. What would you like to see God call into being into your life?
6. Take a few moments to pray and ask God to show you what lies you might be believing that are standing in the way of you experiencing the hope that he intends for you to experience.
Introductory Thoughts About Renewing of the Mind
What we think/believe will drive our choices or actions. Our actions will establish a pattern. Our patterns will reap fruit. What fruit do we see in our lives that we might like changed? Let’s trade lies for truth, so we will begin to believe differently. The truth we believe will affect our choices and behavior. Our new choices and behaviors will establish new patterns in our lives. And the new fruit we long for will become evident over time!
You can select the level of involvement that you can manage. As time goes on, if you have to pick just ONE thing to do each day, I would recommend that you invest time in journaling through one set of questions in Barb Raveling’s I Deserve a Donut book or app each day. I believe that time invested doing this will reap HUGE rewards!
Trade Book Assignment –to be completed by January 13th
If you are using the Thin Within book (paperback or hardcover) published 2002 or 2005, I have pulled out from the deep dark recesses of my hard drive(s) a draft of a Thin Within Book Study Guide that, as yet, is unpublished. I provide it to you with a caveat…please be kind! lol! It isn’t publishable… Use it at your own risk ;-), but know that it was created with love. I provide the TW Study Guide Intro and TW Study Guide Week 1 documents, but please know they don’t match what we will do with the workbook study. I think it will be good, anyhow! It has you doing 5 chapters each week, so you will be done sooner than the workbook if you go at that pace, but hang out with us. 🙂 Also, you might still want to do the assignment below, #s 4, 6-10. You don’t have to have a workbook to do those.
Workbook Assignment – to be completed by January 13th [[Note: I know that many of us struggle with perfectionism and a condemning spirit. This is a chance to break out of that. I give you WAY more to do in any given week than is reasonable to do. So, do NOT expect to do it all! That would be impossible! Extend grace. Practice godliness by releasing perfectionism…Do what you can and be ok with that. PROMISE me! :-)) Consider all the possibilities like a “buffet.” Choose what looks best to you and let the rest go this time. There is always another day to try another tool!
1. Read through the introductory material in the Thin Within workbook, pp. A5-A11.
2. Read, highlight, mark Lesson 1 on pages B3 – B8 or listen to the audio file of Lesson 1 at Sound Cloud. Discuss it here in the comments section below this post or at our Class Private Facebook Group Page.
3. Complete one section of “exercises” each day. For instance, today, Tuesday, you could complete Day One on page B9-B10. Tomorrow, Wednesday, you could complete Day Two on page B11. Thursday, complete B12…and so on. When you come to the optional exercises, use your discretion. You can catch up on one of the other days or do some of the other optional activities.
4. For extra power in this process…begin now to each day keep a running list of any of God’s attributes, his characteristics, how he relates to or treats people that you find in your reading of the workbook or Scriptures. I suggest keeping this running list in a section of your journal (or inside the cover of your workbook) as you will add to it over the course of weeks and months! It helps if you include the reference. Check out this post to learn more about what I call “The God List.” (If anyone comes up with a better name, please PLEASE tell me! LOL!) If you would rather have it electronically, I have found software like Evernote is a great place to keep my God List as it syncs between all my devices and I have it handy ANY time I want or need it. I suggest adding at least two or three (or more) to your God List each day. You will be glad you did as we get further on. The extra few minutes will be an investment. 🙂 Here is more information about the God List.
5. This week, use Days 1-7 in the Temple Tool Kit. If you would rather, keep your notes in your journal. I like using a regular journal as there is more space to write.
6. Record any thoughts—LIES—that you discover pop into your head such as:
“Why bother doing this? It will never work.”
Or “You have done this before and you never keep the weight off.”
Or “This approach may work for everyone else, but it won’t for you.”
Or “I am SUCH a failure!”
And so on. When you discover a thought that contributes to thoughts of defeat, flush it out into the open and ask God to show you HIS thoughts about whatever it is. For instance, regarding the above:
“With the support and prayers of all the group members, with a new focus on this material, this WILL work!”
Or “God is doing a NEW thing and he will give me what I need to succeed AND to walk in victory.”
Or “God created my body reliably and he will show me that this way of releasing weight is effective for me, too. It is a God-sized work, true, but he is AT work doing it right now!”
Or “God will use this failure to teach me what doesn’t work and to give me strategies for victory!”
7. Make liberal use of the Sound Cloud files and You Tube videos. They are there for you to help you. Please enjoy. Download. Put them on your devices, carry them with you. God wants to saturate your thinking with the TRUTH about this journey!
8. Commit to relishing eating ANY food you desire once your stomach is empty…at a perfect “0.” Serve yourself less food. Start by halving your portions this week. If you sense physical satisfaction — a “5” coming before you are done eating, ask God to give you strength to stop eating. You get to eat again the very next time you are hungry! NO deprivation here!
9. Most of all…keep on praying! Pray that God will help you arrive at your natural God-given size, that you will break free from the stronghold that food has on you, that you will renew your mind so that you think differently about food, your body, eating, and the victory that God has won for you! Thinking differently will result in different actions resulting in different fruit! And maybe most of all…pray that you will have a wonderfully refreshing new intimacy with your Savior and Lord. 🙂
10. If you want to supercharge the transformation, renewing your mind will be paramount. I am personally making sure I do something twice each day to renew my mind. If you aren’t sure what that might look like, then journaling through a set of Barb’s questions in her I Deserve a Donut book or app is just the ticket. This is a great complement to our study of the Thin Within book!
How About You?
Check in! How are you feeling about beginning this journey? I would LOVE to hear from you here.
Note: If you have just stumbled upon this blog and this post and you like the idea of breaking free from dieting, fear-based exercise and the obsession that has so often been our practice to break free of extra weight, sign up for our Thin Within workbook study email list. It isn’t too late to dive on in! This page tells more about it.
Image courtesy of Master isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Sometimes I feel like I’m a broken record when it comes to sharing how important I feel renewing our mind is when it comes to overcoming overeating, the diet mentality, releasing weight, having a “healthy” relationship with food, etc. But honestly, renewing my mind has made a huge difference! I tried to be a normal eater for many years, but it never stuck. I believe it was because I was working on changing the external so much that I was ignoring what was going on internally, mostly in my mind and emotions. When Heidi first introduced Barb Raveling’s Renewing of the Mind Weight Loss study in March of 2013, something finally clicked in me. I knew it would work because I have seen the same concepts applied to other areas of my life with success—all because of God’s Word transforming me from the inside out.
There are several ways I can spend time renewing my mind. I can: journal, read through the ‘I Deserve a Donut’ app (or book), read through my truth cards, or a mixture of those. I know that renewing my mind is a critical part of overcoming.
The other day, I started reading through Barb Raveling’s book Taste for Truth: A 30 day Weight Loss Bible Study. She talks about how back in the Old Testament days that people would run to strongholds to be safe from their enemy. David talks about going to God as his refuge and stronghold. But some turn to things that turn into strongholds in their lives, such as food.
About a week ago the enemy was questioning me about why I take the time to renew my mind (why do I even listen?). And to be honest, he is still assaulting me about it, but I’m seeing the truth in the matter more and more. Today, the Lord has been reminding me about how taking the time to renew my mind has been vital for me as I have walked through different things in my life.
For example, years ago, I struggled a lot with fear. It was the kind of fear that made me afraid to even step outside my door or open my kitchen blinds. We lived next to neighbors that made me uneasy. Nothing ever happened, but the enemy had me convinced that this fear was real in my life.
FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real
One night, I had the opportunity to go to a women’s Bible study, but because of this fear, I could not bring myself to walk the few feet from our door to our car. I was always tense, stressed, and had knots in my stomach. I felt paralyzed by this fear. It was bad! It was so hard for my mind to work through the lies that were holding me captive. This went on for many months.
Finally, the Lord was able to get my attention enough to encourage me to write out scriptures on notecards about His truth about fear and peace. I also printed scriptures in really big font and different colors on 8-1/2×11-inch paper and taped them up in different parts of my house, like on my kitchen cupboards for instance. The kitchen was one of those rooms that I felt afraid to be in because of the location near my neighbor’s house. It was the perfect place for me to stop, read those scriptures, and renew my mind. I read through the scripture cards each morning and whenever I needed them. I also asked for prayer from a group of believers I had grown to trust.
Over time, the Lord began to break down those strongholds of fear. I would wake up in the morning, and without even trying to remember, the scriptures I was reading throughout the day would come to my mind. The Lord spoke His truth to me and after a while I was free from that fear! Praise the Lord! I chose to take my eyes off the fear and see God’s word and promises. He freed me!
He’s been showing me that He can do the same with how I look at food, eating, my body, etc. He can tear down the stronghold just as he tore down the stronghold of fear in my life. The truth has always been there, but I have to do my part in being in the Word. He does the rest. And if it takes me filling a whole journal of conversations with the Lord about food, then so be it. The Lord knows I have filled other journals with other struggles—which I have overcome, all thanks to Him! Renewing our mind may feel like “work”, but if we don’t take the time to take those thoughts captive, we will continue to be slave to the wrong thoughts.
Earlier this year the enemy wanted me to believe that certain types of food would kill me and that if I ate them that I was tempting God. A scripture He showed me to refute that lie is 1 Timothy 4:4-5, which says, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.”
Another lie was that people would be disappointed in me if I truly ate all foods and wasn’t following some special diet. The Lord gave me 1 Corinthians 10:29: For why is my liberty judged by another man’s conscience?
When my mind wasn’t at ease, the Lord gave me peace through 2 Timothy 1:7, which says, “For God did not give me the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”
Recently, when the enemy has urged me to give up, the Lord gave me Hebrews 10:39: But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Those are just a few examples of how the Lord has exposed the lie and replaced it with His truth. These are scriptures in my truth cards that I read each day. The enemy wants me to be caught up in his lies, but the Lord wants me to be free in His truth. That’s why I take the time to renew my mind.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2
How about you?
I know we are about to embark on the Thin Within Workbook study (starting Monday, January 6, 2014), and I believe Heidi is going to incorporate ‘renewing our mind’ into the study. I just want to encourage you to make renewing your mind a part of your journey in overcoming. Surround yourself with whatever tools you deem necessary to help you. It will be different for each person. I look at having these tools as weapons in our arsenal to combat the lies of the enemy and to free us.
These tools can include:
Bible
Truth cards
‘I Deserve a Donut’ app and/or book by Barb Raveling
Taste for Truth by Barb Raveling
Thin Within by Judy Halliday
Thin Within workbooks
Personal journal
Praise music
Scripture cards
God list
List of thanksgiving
There are so many possibilities of what may be in your toolbox to help renew your mind. If you feel overwhelmed by having too many tools, ask the Lord to help you simplify. This shouldn’t feel overwhelming. We aren’t trading bondage for bondage. If you don’t have peace about something, don’t do it. The Lord wants to free you!
I have worked through all four of the Thin Within workbooks.
I have worked through the Thin Within book.
I have led Thin Within groups three times in the last ten years.
I am a certified Wellness Coach and Pilates instructor.
I teach.
I KNOW this stuff!
And yes, here I am, still yearning for freedom, still waiting on God. Still wondering when I will be set free from struggling with excess eating and excess body weight.
Perhaps it’s precisely because I am immersed in the world of fitness that I am easily distracted and find it hard to keep my eyes fixed on the path that I know is the only way to freedom in this.
A few months ago I invested in a season of private coaching with Heidi Bylsma; a very wise decision! I remember sending her my daily logs with my “hunger numbers”—almost always reporting 0 to 5 eating. And yet I saw no weight loss and felt no progress happening. Heidi pointed out the discrepancy. ☺ As is the way of a good coach, Heidi put the observation out there and left it to me to wrestle with: “Brenda, you report eating within your chosen boundary of 0 to 5 on a consistent basis, yet you say you are not seeing the results you’d hoped for.”
In my wrestling, I decided I needed to more clearly define a “5.” Obviously I was eating past 5, so in my mind the solution was to get better at stopping at a 5.
One morning God turned the light on for me; all I had worked on with Heidi became clear as I read through the book of Joshua.
I came to the part where the land is being divided up between the tribes of Israel. I noticed how clear and precise the boundaries were and I started thinking how boundaries are important to God—God gives us boundaries for our safety, health and because He knows what is truly good for us.
In Joshua 18 the Scripture tells us that there were still seven Israelite tribes who had not received their inheritance. And Joshua says to them, ” How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord the God of your ancestors has given you?”
God spoke to me through that—How long am I going to wait until I do MY part to take possession of the freedom that God has given me?
It’s my inheritance!
God has given it to me, but it is up to me to do my due diligence and receive what God has for me.
For me, at this point in my journey, trying to more precisely define a “5” on the hunger scale is not where God wants my focus.
I believe He is showing me that my part is to do what it takes to place myself before Him every single day for the renewing of my mind; soaking in the truth of His Word, writing Truth Cards as a daily practice, being honest about where I am spiritually and what I am doing, as well as what I am eating.
Sunday morning at church God again spoke to me—this time through a guest speaker. She was teaching from Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and she came to Chapter 3 verses 8 and 9, where Adam and Eve have disobeyed God and eaten from the one tree in the garden that He had forbidden. In verse 9 God calls out to Adam, saying, “Where are you?
I believe that God is asking that of me as well. “Where are you with ME, Brenda?” Are you living in all the abundance I have given you, or are you in a place of rebellion? What tree are you choosing?”
To me it’s a really big deal is that I finally have taken my eyes off of seeking weight loss above everything– although I haven’t given up and I do still want it. It’s that now I am seeking FIRST the kingdom of God; seeking GOD through specific, daily practices so that my focus turns away from food and body obsession.
I have learned that the daily practices of prayer, Bible reading, writing and reading Truth Cards, praising God in song, lifting my face to Him will bring about the renewing of my mind and the transforming of my heart, my body, and my life. And then eating within the boundaries of 0 to 5 will be a natural result of my decision to claim my inheritance and choose the abundant life He alone offers.
~ Brenda Ameli. Brenda lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching mind body movement and leading the women’s ministry at her church.
How About You?
Is it possible that “thin” or “0” or “5” has actually become a distraction from what God wants for you? Does God want you to focus elsewhere? What might responding to His invitation in this look like for you?
ATM machines. Amazing devices. But, even after all these years, I still view them with distrust. All the more since the unthinkable happened.
On a lazy Saturday evening last summer, I stood at the local ATM machine to make a deposit in my personal account. I inserted two checks totaling what, to me, is a significant amount of money. As I waited for the machine to verify that I had followed my end of the bargain :-), I noticed that all was not well. The ATM was taking a bit too long to respond. Then, horror of horrors!
“ERROR” appeared on the screen.
Something had gone wonky with the entire automated process. The checks were gone and no deposit was credited to my account. I fully anticipated that giving the machine my hard-won checks, I would have money present in my account in short order (even if not immediately).
After a conversation with a national customer service line representative and two visits to the bank, there was still no money posted to my account. In time, however, the deposit did show up.
I am not in the habit of waiting for much of anything. If I make a sacrifice of some sort, then this is especially true… I want a return on it …YESTERDAY! The ATM fiasco just illustrated this in a practical way.
Isn’t the same true for most of us in our quest to discover our “natural, God-given size?” In fact, this tendency may rush us right past what it will take to even make the changes. Or, assuming, we can “clean” the “outside of the cup,” or “constrain” our outer behavior, we may release weight, but the first trial that hits, we revert back to old behaviors and we are off on that downward slide once again.
What if we were to take the slow way…the reliable way? What if this struggle with food, our bodies, eating, isn’t so much about our size, but about our souls? What if God wants us to learn something we can learn no other way? What if he wants us to learn how desperately we need him? What if he wants us to learn the power of training our minds to think differently?
When you invest your time in renewing your mind, in training yourself to think truthfully, even before you are tempted to eat outside of your boundaries, you can actually gain a new mindset that can activate at just the right moment—say when you are most tempted to give in to desire eating! This does take extra time, yes. Like giving up my hard-earned checks to the ATM, I want instant gratification for a sacrifice. There aren’t many things we want to lose other than weight and there aren’t many things we are willing to give up, but we have to be willing to give up…to invest some of our time if we want to learn to think differently about food, about God, about ourselves, about our bodies, about this process.
First thing in the morning, when I am fresh, committed, resolved…it is then that I take the time to renew my mind, to carve out that time to go over in my mind what is true. I select from one of the many tools that I have shared here at the blog or from Barb Raveling’s website. I don’t need to do them all. I don’t need to take much time, even, but doing something makes all the difference in the world. Taking time to think, ponder, speak out loud such thoughts as these will be rewarding..like making an investment in a future return:
“Eating 0 to 5 is richly rewarding.”
“Eating according to these boundaries for me allows me freedom to enjoy all foods within moderation.”
“It is much better to live by design rather than by desire.”
“If I make sacrifices to live according to my boundaries starting now, life will be less chaotic, more peaceful and my body more healthy two months from now.”
As you begin to invest time in telling yourself the truth, in writing out these truths, in designing your truth cards, listening to encouraging Sound Cloud files or creating your own :-), you will find that in the moment of temptation, these are the thoughts that will come into your mind to strengthen you! When you just finished eating a wonderful dinner 0 to 5 and your high school daughter brings in a freshly baked plate of cookies that she made at a friend’s, the thoughts that you invested time thinking about will bathe your mind, enabling you to stand strong in the face of temptation.
Imagine, you are staring down a warm chocolate chip cookie (or four) and the thoughts that hit your mind are, “How many cookies will it really take to satisfy me right now?” or “Will I break a boundary right now if I eat this? What will I gain if I break my boundary right now? What will I lose? What will life look like (inside and out) if I practice *now* living according to this boundary? Is it a good boundary? How will what I do in this moment affect the larger picture? What choice do I really want to make right now?”
If I have spent time renewing my mind once or, even, twice a day, these are the thoughts that come to mind in those weaker moments, bringing with them life and strength infusing power to honor my body, my boundaries, and my God!
I can’t recommend enough the value of taking one set of questions from Barb Raveling’s book I Deserve a Donut and Other Likes That Make You Want To Eat (or her iPhone app) each day…preferably close to the time of day when you are most prone to struggle (I do this at 5pm each day in preparation for the temptation I have to engage in evening eating), and journal the answers. I have found that, for me, just thinking about the questions isn’t enough. I need to sit down and actually grapple with the questions a bit. Seeing my answers in print is really helpful. I do this even when I am not tempted. (Not many of us want to sit down and journal when we are being tempted.)
The time invested is SO worth it. In fact, I have found the investment worth some other sacrifices. I now set my alarm to wake me up earlier, giving me plenty of time in the morning to be able to renew my mind. It is like putting a deposit in an ATM (one that WORKS, though!). I know that if I put that time in, it will come back with lots of additional benefits.
How About You?
If you haven’t seen the consistency in your life with practicing the Thin Within principles or maintaining your godly boundaries of eating between hunger and satisfaction, are you willing to consider the possibility that you need to change things up? That it might be beneficial to begin now to invest some time (maybe even lose a little sleep…even 15 minutes!) in training your mind to be alert and ready for action? What are you willing to start doing today? If doing this every day is too much, you might want to consider 4x a week to start with. You might be surprised and actually enjoy it! 🙂 I know you will be pleased with the way it impacts your thinking!
