Wow. I found week 4 really incredibly helpful. God is doing a new thing in me right now. I bet he is in you, too! I do feel like our momentum was derailed just a bit by our technical difficulties, but we appear to be back in business! So let’s keep moving! I seriously had a HUGE break-through this week! I am so excited!
This week’s assignment:
1.) Have you been keeping your list of the characteristics of God? How is it going? I would LOVE to see you post a list of what you have so far. I will be posting that as a separate question this week, I think, so please watch for it and chip in with some of yours! Continue to keep a cumulative list of all the characteristics of God and how he treats people.
2.) Enjoy the benefit of getting to know God even more and take the time to go over your list before you start your study time each day. Even if you just take 5 minutes and say back to him his attributes, you will experience his supernatural encouragement. This is the thing…when we lift him up, we get lifted up, too. I don’t get it, but I know it is true. So keep starting your study time with praise by using your attributes list! Has this been helpful for you? Tell us about it!
3.) Read and complete Days 8 and 9 – through page 93. Again, if you aren’t quite there, no worries. You can go any pace God so leads you, just keep on going! 🙂 Post when you get to it. Don’t worry and think you are “too far behind!” That is the enemy trying to get you off track and discouraged. Send him packing!
4.) Continue to add three things to your gratitude journal each day. If you struggle with doing this, ask the Lord to show you things you can be grateful for. This really can be transforming. So 5 minutes of praise (#2 above) and 5 minutes of gratitudes given to God and you have already started your time with ten minutes of the most worthy activities possible! 🙂 How do these activities, practiced regularly, affect you?
5.) We continue to be evaluating our beliefs this week. Have any of you done the truth journaling that we mentioned in our chat from last week? To see the transcript, click this link. In the FIND box, type in “truth journal” or scroll about half way down and you will see it there. Try this in the days ahead and let us know how it goes. Truth Journaling can be used *after* a mess up, but I prefer to use it before. If I do, I can cut off my stray beliefs at the pass beFORE they cause me to eat when I don’t need physical fuel!
6.) On page 78, you are asked about your beliefs about food, weight and eating. If you feel so inclined, please share with us what you discover. Especially as you look over the list on page 78 and 79. Which of those can you identify with?
7.) One of the things I love about chapter 8 is the “Planning for Trials” exercise. Take what you KNOW to be true of yourself and be pro-active! Plan to be different. This is “observe and correct” in action. If you know that you get tense and turn to food more when your cousin comes to visit and she is coming in two weeks, plan NOW. How will you deal with these feelings in a new, different, and godly way? Make a plan and stick with it! Let us know what God leads you to do!
8.) Chapter 9 is part 2 of the same theme. Evaluating the impact of difficult situations on your beliefs and behavior can be incredibly helpful. What do you learn from this chapter? Does the exercise on page 89 help you in any way? If you need some input from others, prayerfully consider sharing with us in the comments.
9.) Consider coming to a chat this week to talk about emotional eating. Or visit another venue and participate. Visit our special God Is Doing A New Thing website to find links to all the venues and other information that might be helpful. This week we will be chatting on Tuesday from 4-5pm Pacific Time and Saturday night from 7-8pm Pacific Time. I hope you can join us!
10.) Are you using any of the TW tools? How is that going? Is it time for you to prayerfully consider leaving one tool behind and trying another one instead? Are you finding your focus is still on my weight, my food, my eating? Or is it on God? 🙂
11.) One more tool that might be helpful to you is the Thin Within e-newsletter. You can subscribe here.
Hey! I am planning for the fall already! I hope you will join me in considering prayerfully what God would have you to do. I am praying about studying through the workbook available at Thin Within. It is my hope that as we study here at the blog, some of you (if not all) will guide live groups through the workbook, too! We can do it together! I am just in the praying phase right now, but thought maybe we could all have live groups and sort of connect here each week about how that is going and to get and give support. Just a thought!
I will be posting a “video review” of the workbook here as well as doing some give-aways in August! You won’t want to miss that! The workbooks are GREAT and come with the “temple toolkit” and a scripture memory resource as well. It is a $45 value that I will be giving away here during August. 🙂
Let’s renew our commitment to keep in touch this week, ok? 🙂
