Truth Inventory Part 3
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Got back yesterday from a weekend in Lake Tahoe with my daughter and 16 other women from our church. It was a beautiful weekend with lots of time to enjoy dear friends. I love those women SO much! 🙂

Note to self: When allowing 15 year old daughter on retreat weekend, be sure she leaves the camera at home! Boredom is the “mother” of too many photographs of Mom! (However, this one with the guitar by the lake is ok. LOL! She also caught many of ME ME ME with ladies I LOVE LOVE LOVE. If you want to see a bit of our weekend, click here to go to my SmugMug gallery….)

While I was on the retreat, I continued my bible study by Priscilla Shirer, called One in a Million. I won’t take the space or time to review it now, but suffice to say that God is using it to dialog with me very personally. As it turns out, he used the study in it to continue my “Truth Inventory” on Saturday morning.

I released all my extra weight (and then some) as I have shared in this blog. I kept it off for a year, clinging in fear to the bathroom scale. I began to deal with other strongholds and emotional challenges to which I had numbed myself for years and began to struggle with eating “just” outside of godly parameters, as I have also shared. In effect, God marched me around in the desert for a long while and there I stood…on the edge of Canaan. I even entered it…or thought I did. But something wasn’t right. The work of God wasn’t “finished.” I thought “finished” looked like 150 pounds. But God was looking at something else.

Off I went again to march around in the desert. I am continuing that march now. But the cool thing is…I feel like there is some light dawning on my understanding.

Priscilla Shirer says on page 42 of the study:
…God should remain their primary focus and hearts’ desire as they approached the beauties and glories of Canaan.

When I got close or even in Canaan (metaphorically speaking) I let my focus shift blatantly…from God, to ME! My body was again the focus! My accomplishments, MY success, MY need to remain at 150 pounds NO MATTER WHAT…yikes!

On page 43 of the study Priscilla Shirer says:
The key to taking full possession of the land God promised was obedience, but the key to finding full appreciation of it was found in remembering God’s goodness and protection through their extended years in the wilderness…Moses encouraged the Israelites to value their wilderness experience.

I didn’t value the time in the wilderness. I viewed it as a means to an end. In fact, the sooner I could get out, get the weight off, the better!

I didn’t value the time spent seeking him, begging him for strength not to give in to my flesh, leaning on him, seeing him come through for me, worshiping and praising him for the victories, experiencing his sufficiency during temptation and especially when my emotions ran rampant and he came through for me…this is what he wants me to value the wilderness for. He wants me to value HIM and the closeness I experience through this challenge and lure of over eating. HE is the goal! HE is my treasure, my hiding place, my safe refuge, my comfort. HE is the goal. Not some weight, size, or fitting into a pair of jeans (that if I were not so vain wouldn’t even be on my radar screen!).

In fact, he doesn’t even want me to value “good health” as much as all of this! He may or may not allow me to be and remain in good health all the days of my life. (Of course, he *does* want me to do whatever I can to do my part to be healthy…that is a given as a steward of this body, HIS temple…)

But what he wants is my heart. I have said this again and again…but it has taken on such a different meaning for me. He REALLY wants it. ALL of it. NOTHING ELSE is to eclipse Him in my sight. NOTHING.

In the margin of my workbook next to the quote from Priscilla above, I wrote:
This is huge. OBEDIENCE is what I am to learn. I got close to entering Canaan, but was not obedient in a number of ways. Lord show me…I don’t want to wait or focus so much on my size and food issue that I miss anything else you may want to show me…I don’t want to miss YOU.

I continue…

Lord, I want to be so enthralled with YOU that YOU are the goal. And being in the desert, I GET to enjoy that…enjoy YOU, your presence, your sufficiency, your love, your joy over me…

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Psalm 73: 25-26