Yesterday, I was using a set of Barb Raveling’s questions to truth journal. I have challenged myself to do this exercise at least once a day and each session has been insightful and rewarding. At the end of yesterday’s session, I wrote down the words BELIEVE, TRUST, INVITE, SURRENDER. The Lord has been speaking these words to me lately and I knew that they were important in my journey with Him. I looked for a way to help me remember the words daily and then it struck me – BITES! (The Holy Spirit impressed upon me the word for “E” so that I could use this acronym).
Believe – The Lord gave me this word in prayer this month. He wants me to not only believe in Him, but to believe Him. I must believe that He is working in me and through me. I pray that I will believe Him and that He will help my unbelief. I pray to believe what He says about my true identity as His child.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. (1 Thessalonians 23-24).
Invite – I invite Him into all aspects of my life – He is invited to each meal, into this process that deals with eating, into my thoughts and really into all of my choices in my life. In my healing from the dieting mentality and the control of food and exercise, I have learned that much of this is a heart issue. Therefore, I invite Him to change my heart – to remove greed, envy and covetousness and to make it pure and wielded to His way.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and rightspirit within me (Psalm 51:10).
Trust – I trust Him, that in His goodness, mercy and faithfulness, He will set me on the right path. I trust that He uses all things, including our suffering and challenges, for good. He is Abba, the perfect Papa, and He is trustworthy. And, it becomes easier to trust Him as I get to know Him better. I accomplish this by reading His Word, praying, and renewing my mind with His Truth.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways submit to Him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Exclaim – praise and truth. I cry out to the Lord – I name who He is, what His character traits are and what He does for His people. My “God list” and praise fests help me to do this.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.(Psalm 100)
I also exclaim His Truth in moments of doubt and temptation. He answers those who call on Him. He will provide a way out of temptation. And the Word of God is the sword in the battle against the enemy and the flesh (Ephesian 6:10-17).
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Cor 10:13)
Surrender – For me, this really gets to the bottom of it all. Absolute surrender – in all ways and in all things – to the Lord is the path to a life of freedom and peace. If I believe that He created my body intentionally with its particular hunger signal and if I know that He has called me to eat within the boundaries of 0 and 5, I then desire to surrender my eating to Him. I need to submit to His authority on this and all things.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:6-8)
So, I am now thinking about BITES as I take each bite during my meals. It keeps me focused on God (not my flesh) and my goal (freedom from the control of food).
How About You?
How do these words speak to you? Does the Holy Spirit lead you to different verses? Different definitions? Different words?
I referred in yesterday’s post to some wounds from my past. Some scars. While I did so with a humorous bent (or that was my intention), the truth is…there is pain in this world. It is a Genesis 3 world. As long as we are in this world, we will experience suffering. It is one of the ways God pries our fingers open from the things (even good things) we otherwise cling to so that he can fill them with himself.
This song is one of those that ministers to the deep places of my heart. On this journey to become all God calls me to become, to release my ungodly coping mechanisms to him, to overcome the strongholds that might otherwise bury me alive, I am called to know that He IS merciful. As Sheldon Vanauken refers to it as a “severe mercy.” Mercy nevertheless.
I hope this song touches you.
Heal the Wound
I used to wish that I could rewrite history
I used to dream that each mistake could be erased
Then I could just pretend
I never knew the me back then
I used to pray that You would take this shame away
Hide all the evidence of who I’ve been
But it’s the memory of
The place You brought me from
That keeps me on my knees
And even though I’m free
Heal the wound but leave the scar
A reminder of how merciful You are
I am broken, torn apart
Take the pieces of this heart
And heal the wound but leave the scar
I have not lived a life that boasts of anything
I don’t take pride in what I bring
But I’ll build an altar with
The rubble that You’ve found me in
And every stone will sing
Of what You can redeem
Heal the wound but leave the scar
A reminder of how merciful You are
I am broken, torn apart
Take the pieces of this heart
And heal the wound but leave the scar
Don’t let me forget
Everything You’ve done for me
Don’t let me forget
The beauty in the suffering
Heal the wound but leave the scar
A reminder of how merciful You are
I am broken, torn apart
Take the pieces of this heart
And heal the wound but leave the scar
A reminder of how merciful, how merciful you are
I am broken torn apart, take the pieces of this
heart, and heal the wound but leave the scar,
leave the scar
This song is available for purchase from iTunes here and from Amazon here.
Wow. God just keeps blowing me away. Grace in action. He is such a gracious, loving, merciful God.
Weds. night, Julie F. and I began our new online support group at the Thin Within website. We had quite a group show up for our first chat! It was WONDERFUL!
Yesterday morning, I knew I, too, needed to open my workbook and “do” the material that I have encouraged all the group members to complete. My words to them Monday night had something to do with “Even if you have done the workbook several times before, believe that God is doing a new thing right now! Go through it with a fresh heart, believing that God will meet you in a new way! Invite Him to do so!”
I have seen God do that with me before with Thin Within material, but I guess I just wasn’t sure He would pull it off again :-/. I don’t know why…There it is again! “Oh me, of little faith!”
Even after saying that to the group, I felt a bit…well, “Ho Hum” about doing the workbook…*again* yesterday morning. It is SO familiar. What I really wanted was to work in my Beth Moore Stepping Up study. But I figured I would get to that after I hustled my way through the reading of Lesson 1 in the Thin Within workbook.
First, I spent some time journaling a prayer to God to help me see the material in a new way. Then, I began to read Lesson 1 and God gave me an “assignment.” To those of you with the Thin Within quarter one workbook, I challenge you, the readers of this blog, with the same “assignment:”
Go through Lesson 1. Read and highlight, circle or underline everything that is said about God’s character–what He is like or what He does. Write down a list of all of these character qualities or behaviors in a journal. If there are verses, write them down (look them up, too!). Then next to all of these, write down if you believe them or not–REALLY believe them! Use this list (and keep adding to it as you go through the workbook for the next 3 months) to pray in faith, “God, I thank you that you do the impossible. Thank you that you embrace me and are doing a new thing in me. Thank you that your grace is immeasurable and steadfast.” If you struggle with believing any of the things you have written down, pray a prayer of confession and ask God to help you to believe these things about Him in a new way.
As I began to do this…oh wow…I sensed His power and His presence in such a mighty way, it was like I could touch Him! Like FEEL that embrace, literally!
I continued to bask in His presence as I left to go on a trail ride with my best horse. Mercy Me was playing in my truck…This video (by someone else) plays the song that I listened to…the words really became me…or I became the words. God was so ver present it was almost overwhelming! (In a good way!)
If you can take the time to listen to the song all the way through, I hope you will do that. It is so powerful. The words to the song are here.
It struck me so powerfully…I was truly caught up in God’s beauty, just as the song says.
But then, suddenly, God gave me an amazingly powerful *contradictory* image. Yes, I was swept off my feet by Him in this moment. But He showed me what happens when I am not.
He showed me what I have often done…replacing the object of my devotion. This may sound so silly, but he showed me what it would be like if the music that was playing was sung to what I sometimes focus on, sometimes surrender to–as if the music was sung to the pizza, or the chocolate muffin, or the hot fudge sundae…Picture it with me…
I sit down, grinning ear to ear at my dining table, eyes GLUED to the food, heart fixated on the tasty morsels landing on my taste buds:
“I can feel your presence here with me…(singing to the food…)
Suddenly I’m lost within your beauty… (this breaks my heart…)
Caught up in the wonder of your touch (on my lips and the taste),
Here in this moment I surrender to your love…”
How often have I surrendered to the “love” of food?
This broke my heart…but God showed me this so tenderly. I did *NOT* feel shamed. He doesn’t use shame. It is His kindness that leads me to repentance…
I felt…well… “educated.” I felt like he “enlightened” me, pulled back the curtain, as it were, to expose (there it is again) the truth. But, again, he showed me truth with the perfect balance of grace.
And just as quickly as that vision of my sin came upon me, it left and He restored me with an awareness of HIM. HIS beauty. HIS majesty. I was caught up again by the “wonder of His touch.”
I can tell you for SURE, the two do NOT begin to compare.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
– Psalm 73:25-26
Thank you, Lord, for a vision, just a taste of your amazing presence. Oh, God, it really does make me fall down to my knees like the song says…And thank you for showing me so clearly, just what I have been doing when I allow food to have my affection…I have “surrendered” to it. Thank you that, in each moment, I have a choice. I can choose to surrender to your love. I can surrender to your grace. I can surrender to the One who took my place. Let me not forget. Oh, God…thank you. In the matchless name of Jesus, Amen.
I choose to begin this day with gratitude. I have posted at my Gratitudes Blog.
I know for a fact that gratitude changes, transforms, flips things around. When I choose to praise, thank, worship the Lord no matter what happens, things change…*I* change.
When I make fleshly, sinful, ungodly choices, it is really an expression of pride–that my way, my will, is being exalted above God’s. There is no way that pride can exist when worship–true worship–is going on. That is because worship, thanks, gratitude given to God puts me where I belong, in a humble place.
So, today, I choose to praise, worship, thank the Lord for anything and everything I can think of. I will take captive any thoughts that are not obedient, surrendered and submissive to Christ.
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!
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