Trying to Sneakily Remove the Guilt

 Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are You not He, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait for You, Since You have made all of these. Jeremiah 14:22

As I have said in other posts, God showed me that food had become a false god, because I was turning to food for comfort in times of stress rather than putting things in Christ's very capable hands. Well, the thing is, I wanted to have a snack the other evening. It wasn't that I was hungry, because while I was eating, I was devising it in my mind to have a snack afterward.

Trying to pretend I was justified in eating the peanuts, I prayed about it and asked God if it was O.K. for me to share the bag of peanuts with my husband after we eat and if it isn't, to not let my husband agree to eating them with me. 

I so cleverly staged this so sneakily trying to remove the guilt. When I asked my husband, he really didn't feel in the mood to eat the peanuts. Actually, God had answered my prayer to let me know by my husband's response, whether it was O.K. for me to eat the peanuts or not.

I got my answer, but I found that I was feeling frustrated with my husband who didn't give me the response I had wanted. What that tells me is that God is showing me that food is starting to become too important in my life again if I'm plotting ways to snack and being frustrated with my husband over food. Even though God allowed the majority of this weight loss to stay off all these years, I still slip back into old patterns. Fortunately for me, Christ sees what I am doing and helps to refocus me!!!

Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

Is anything too hard for the Lord? Genesis 18:first have of verse 14.

 As you may already know, Christ blessed me with a weight loss of 80+ pounds and has allowed the vast majority of that weight loss to stay off for over 40 years. Periodically, I prayerfully contemplate all of this. The weight loss wasn't due to something I did. In fact, I was giving up! I sat on the bed a prayed to God telling Him that I give up on the diets and trying to be thin, because I couldn't do it. [I had tried for most of my life and nothing worked for long. Actually, of all the many, many diets I tried, of those that worked at all, I ended up gaining more weight than I lost.]

I told God, as I sat on the bed that day, "If you ever want me to be thin, Lord, You'll have to do it, because I can't." I didn't expect anything to happen, but it did. That very same day, the Lord God took away my cravings for sugar, excess food, and lots of carbs. It was just gone. I realize it defies all explanation, but God's the one who allowed this miraculous blessing. Over the time of the weight loss, He had lots of lessons for me. One of the major ones was that He showed me that food had become too important in my life. When I was stressed, happy, worried, etc. I would eat to console myself instead of turning to my Lord and Savior. Food had become a false god to me and I hadn't even realized it. I learned that when I'm feeling tempted to eat things I shouldn't or to eat for no reason, there is probably something I'm stressed about and I need to turn it over to Christ's very capable hands...and He gives me a calm feeling, knowing that Christ is there with me through the good and the bad and everything in between!

Anyway, sometimes when I prayerfully ponder all of this, I am so amazed by the blessing that Christ did for me. How can that be? Why? When I read this Bible passage, it reminds me: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" If He can do that me, He can do that for you too, if you let Him!

Through My Weakness

And He [the Lord] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Over the many years I've felt led to write the Christian Overeaters Past and Present Blog, I've wondered, periodically, why so many people are drawn to it. In the hundreds of posts that have been shared, find these at Christian Overeaters Support.blogspot.com/ the vast majority of them attest to my being a very sinful human being. I tell of the many times I start to fall back into old patterns of turning to food when I feel stressed, happy, fearful, etc. Fortunately for me, Christ is very gracious and brings me back to the point of remembering that when I turn to food for comfort instead of turning to Him, I've let food become a false god in my life.

You wouldn't think that it should be that easy for me to backslide, especially in that it's been over 40 years that Christ blessed me with the loss of 80 pounds of excess weight. In addition to that, He's allowed the vast majority of that weight to stay off all these years. In the times I tend to backslide, I find that I'm not staying focused on turning these stressful issues over into Christ's very capable hands. I fall back into trying to figure out how to solve all my problems or all the problems of the world on my own, which is a foolish thing for me to do. Jesus always sees the Big Picture and knows how best to handle situations. When I am prayerful and turn situations over to Him, instead of fretting over them, a sense of calm comes over me, because I know my Lord and Savior will take care of the particular situation/s in the way He determines is best, according to His will.

Prayerfully contemplating all of this, I think readers want to know that Christ doesn't just turn His back on us sinful human beings like you and me, although it may be that we turn our backs on Him. He is always there to comfort us and lead us through difficult situations when we let Him.

I Thought I was Finished, but God Showed Me that I Wasn't

 Matthew 7:1-5 Jesus says: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in you own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye';  and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

I had felt led to stop my weekly posts, so that I could focus primarily on doing Biblical Research.  You can find this research on Do Biblical Inconsistencies Really Matter? at https://Biblicalinconsistencies.blogspot.com/ 

I was saddened by this, because I'm a sinful human being and I really enjoyed sharing the insights that Christ gave me related to my weight loss and how food and other things had become too important in my life. 

The thing is, the other day Christ gave me new a new insight to share. I'm not sure how often I will be posting on this site, but I know I'm supposed to share this with you. I guess since it's been over 40 years that Christ has blessed me with an 80 pound weight loss and allowed the vast majority of it to stay off during that time, I think I know what's counterproductive and what's not. As you noticed, I have I think underlined, because that's the root of this whole post. 

Years ago, before the weight loss, I used to pray, "God help me loose weight," "help me..." God showed me that I wasn't turning things over into Christ's very capable hands and was into the "I" and "Me's" asking God to help ME do things, although I didn't realize at the time that was what I was doing. It wasn't until I gave up control and told God, "I give up. If you ever want me to be thin, You'll have to do it." I wasn't expecting anything to happen, because I was just giving up on trying to ever be thin, giving up on all the diets, giving up on all the pain and frustration! 

The thing is, that very same day, Christ changed my life and started showing me that I needed to put my life, my food, my fears, my stress, etc. into Christ's very capable hands instead of eating over them. He showed me that food had become a false god to me, because I turned to it in times of trouble to console me instead of turning to my Lord and Savior!

Well, the thing is, recently I was talking to my spouse who went to the store to walk laps around it, but brought home mark down pies and doughnuts. I felt compelled to share with him that it's counterproductive to walk laps and buy things that have the potential to cancel out the benefit of those laps.

Later, Christ had it on my heart that before the weight loss that He allowed in my life, people used to tell me how I should eat, what I should eat, what I shouldn't eat and I would become resentful and eat it just to spite them. Funny thing, which really isn't so funny, it didn't hurt them all those years, it just hurt me! Sadly, I realized that I was doing exactly what others did to me. I was telling my beloved husband what he should and shouldn't do with his exercise and eating. It was a very eye-opening experience! In addition to that, Christ led me to share this humiliating realization with you, because I'm a sinful human being and I will always need Christ's help in my life to move me to be the Christian He wants me to be.