Melting

Long day. Emotions ran super high – super sensitive to everything. I really hate being at DEFCON 1 for no reason. Finally remembered that I need to practice relaxing into life with Christ. A friend shared a perspective with me last night – God wants to talk to me, if I will listen…but…he may not speak in terms of my next task to complete, or what he wants from me…sometimes, He’ll just tell me He loves me.

I don’t know where my TW journey is going. I know it’s a great thing. I have gotten a lot out of the chapters. I will copy excerpts of what I read yesterday that I underlined. I have no massive new revelations, just a conscious deliberate choice today to quiet myself and just melt into the idea that God really is God – in full control of His plan and that sometimes, I just need to stop trying to grab the wheel and hang on for the ride!

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 13

In terms of my task list, I have spent way too long studying today, but in terms of my heart, today was amazing. I wish I could convey all the bits that God is changing in my heart right now, but I do have tasks to do.

If nothing else, focus on the #1 commandment – Love God with all your heart. The rest is just fruit. I will be talking to God about each of us today – and will share, later, anything that he feels I need to communicate.

This is what I heard from God to me today:

• Chase hard after God
• Don’t let these truths elude you
• God is patient – he WILL wait for you to “get it”
• Ask for willingness
• Ask for sensitivity to hear what the Spirit is saying – ALL THE TIME
• Ask for understanding to recognize whatever is blocking willingness and sensitivity
• God’s communication is perpetual
• He wants to talk to you all day long
• This is worth pursuing
• Underlying message – LISTEN and be changed.
• ACTION comes from CONVICTION
• Ask for CONVICTION

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 13

Wow. More powerful stuff in the Day 13 chapter.

The Lord is freeing us from slavery to the past, to the lies we have believed…to legalism or the law. He has been removing rubble and laying a foundation — the foundation, of course, is Christ Himself.

Joy begins to fill our hearts as we refuse to take on any identity except the one He purchased for us. Who are you in Him? Your identity is found not in your performance, but only in Him.
– TW p. 131

Yet another marriage analogy here. Perhaps that’s why God call’s the church the “bride of Christ”?

My identity as “wife” is based on my relationship to my husband. It’s not based on my behavior or performance, it’s based on our relationship – the existence of him, his love for me, my love for him, our commitment to each other – that’s what makes us husband and wife.

Our salvation is signed, sealed, and delivered instantly upon receiving His gift, which was purchased by Jesus on Calvary’s cross. But walking in the newness of this life doesn’t happen all at once. The intimacy God wants to share with us increases as we release to Him our unmet needs and our expectations of others and ourselves. It occurs by degrees as we surrender our mind, emotions, and will to Him moment by moment for inspiration and accept His equipping and His empowerment. He intends that His grace should infuse every aspect of our lives.
– TW p. 131

This is such a relief. One of the things that comes with the package of my focusing on my performance is my expectation that now that I “know the way” I will, of course, now be successful. This isn’t about me having new instructions and therefore taking new action. It’s about me relaxing into the relationship with a God that wants nothing more than just to be WITH me. God wants a relationship with me. Me. He wants to be my best friend. He wants to be the one I tell all my secrets, both good and bad. Even better, he can actually DO something about what we share…not just be a good listener!

He guarantees that if we just get to know him, and trust him, that he’ll change us, and He will be contagious!

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 12

7:20a – 1 waffle w/PB & syrup; 2/3 mug coffee w/creamer & sugar
8:00a-8:30a – 1 mug coffee w/creamer & sugar
 

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Visual picture I got today:

I’m in the deep mud. Drowning. The law just shows me how deep I am in. God’s glowing hand is above me, within reach. The “ride of my life” is offered to me if I just grab His hand.

One of the results of grabbing God’s hand is that I’m lifted up out of the mud. My weight is just one particular clump of mud sticking to me. What *I* have been doing with God’s presence is taking his hand for a brief minute or two, and checking the status of the clump of mud (my weight on a scale) to see if it has loosened or even fallen off. When it does start to come off, I let go of His hand and end up back down in the mud.

What I am not “getting” is that hanging on to the Hand of God will not only pull me up out of the mud, but will give me the ride of a lifetime, will run me through a thorough washing, and then I will be taken for my REAL purpose – I will be able to FLY! God isn’t worried in particular about the one chunk of mud (my weight), he wants me up and out and flying with Him!!

 

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I have much more to write, but it will take me a bit and I want to publish this…so here goes!

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Ok, I apologize for not getting this posted yesterday. It was a very intense day. After the “vision picture” and the corroboration by Christina’s photo selection (yay God!) I was on a “connect high”. I had a really, really hard time getting myself mentally settled down to read chapter 12. And then when I did…WOW! There was a gentle change of perspective for me, yet again!

So, I guess I’ll just give you some quotes here of things that stood out.

When talking about the “taunting cynic” personalities that want to attack the work God is doing – whether it’s the cynical person in us, or people that weigh in on our lives:

Larry the Legalist…claims that we have no business building with such freedom… Many of us have been there [on the path of our own performance] and know that on that path we may experience temporary “success.” But unfortunately the success never lasts. To make matters worse, it is on that path of our performance that the “club of condemnation” appears at every turn. This is not what Christ died to give us. he died to give us freedom.

On the path of our performance we feel like we’re in control. We humans like to feel that way. But as we saw yesterday, control does not belong to us. The Lord purchased us to be His and with our new identity in Christ, legalism and fixed formulas are incompatible with our freedom. Our tendency is to cling to familiar rules to follow. We like the familiarity of the legalistic approach and feel drawn toward the food plans Larry recommends….

Larry likes control… Under the confines of the law, he knows the rules, what is expected of him, and the standards for his performance. He wants to take us with him, but this is the detour that leads off God’s path and back to the path of our performance.
– TW p. 119

OUCH. Of all the cynics on this journey, none yells louder in my own head than Larry. I had great success with the Weigh Down program. I was also steeped in 100% legalism. It was completely my performance with some “Yay God!”s thrown in. I remember sitting with a coworker who had also had success with the program, and we were congratulating each other, back and forth, celebrating how we would NEVER be fat again because we had found “the way”.

I wanted to lead a WD group because I wanted to show everyone else how we’d discovered the truth. But the truth did not really have anything to do with relationship. In fact, if hard pressed, I couldn’t explain how the eating plan (between hungry and full) actually had anything to do with God. I’ve historically seen God’s place in this as simply the “clean up crew” for my depression when I fail.

Even now, I find myself drawn to looking for the “magic rules” that will keep my behaviors in line. What I am choosing to return to is Jesus. His grace. His gift of relationship.

“The disciple living by grace rather than law has undergone a decisive conversion — a turning from mistrust to trust. The foremost characteristic of living by grace is trust in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ,” says Brennan Manning
– TW p120

[Abigail, the Achiever, another of the taunting cynics] appears to have forgotten that it is the Lord who purchased her freedom. It is the Lord who as exposed the lie of her former beliefs and it is the Lord who has equipped her to act in accordance with His truth.

Brennan Manning asks “How long will it be before we discover we cannot dazzle God with our accomplishments? When will we acknowledge that we need not and cannot buy God’s favor? When will we acknowledge that we don’t have it all together and happily accept the gift of grace? When will we grasp the thrilling truth of Paul: ‘We acknowledge that what makes a man righteous is not obedience to the Law [staying between '0' and '5'], but faith in Jesus Christ‘” (Galatians 2:16)?
–TW p. 122

In her book, Lord, I need Grace to Make It, Kay Arthur says, “The Law was never intended to make a man or woman righteous, whether he or she was a lost person or a saved person. If you and I can remember this truth, it will forever cast us upon His grace. Grace will become the key that will unlock a life of greater peace, trust, confidence, obedience, and intimacy with our heavenly Father and His Son as we walk hand in hand with the Spirit of Grace.”

The entire purpose of the law was to prove that we couldn’t pull off the business of living without His help. We need God’s grace to make it. The law was given so that we would discover that there has to be some other way. And there is another way. Christ is the way.
– TW p. 122

Practicing the presence of God. This concept keeps being the bottom line of everything. Eyes on Christ. Christ is the way. The first of the most important commandments? – Love God with all your heart… God wants intimacy with me.

I am going to stop doing my food long and hunger numbers for a short time. I’ve been involved with the 0 to 5 eating concept for almost 10 years now. I know what the boundaries are. I have made such a “law” out of them in my own mind that I need to stop focusing on them right now. I only have so much attention span. My head has been so overwhelmed lately, that I am recognizing my need to have ONE underlying thread to cling to. That thread, that motto, is going to be “Eyes on Christ”.

I have been likening “law” versus “grace” and “relationship” to the idea of marital infidelity in marriage. There are boundaries in a marriage that are not to be crossed. Jesus even used this analogy to get the point through to us. If I spend my time trying to outline all the boundaries of what constitutes “cheating”, then what does that do to my relationship with my husband? If, however, I spend all my time loving my husband, talking with him, relating to him, sharing with him, connecting with him, then my energies are directed at the true source of the marriage and the boundaries are no longer really an issue.

God wants my heart. He doesn’t want just my obedience. Even more, the kind of obedience that isn’t fruit of the overwhelming loving and trustful relationship with Him really isn’t worth much. It makes me feel independent from Him. That’s the last thing I need right now…

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 11 (yet again)

Bible teacher and author, Kay Arthur, says, “Don’t struggle in self-effort to be better. Don’t determine that you are going to ‘try harder.’ Acknowledge your need of His all sufficient grace and go forward, surrendering and trusting in the power of God’s transforming grace. ‘As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him’ (Colossians2:6). You were saved by faith; therefore you are to walk in faith. It may be one step at a time, but walk. you can say, ‘I can’t,’ as long as in the next breath you say, ‘But, God, You can.’”
– TW p. 114

I am still having struggles understanding the nuance differences between “be better” or “try harder” (which I’m NOT to do) and “go forward”. To me, they both take effort. Some days, going forward takes more effort. I don’t know how to go forward without mustering up enough strength to take that step.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
– Matthew 6:25

Sometimes I think I take TW too seriously and turn IT into worry and a control thing. I am not sure how to do both — pay attention to my eating, but not worry about and try to control it. I have such an all or nothing approach. That’s why I have not been posting over the past week or so. I haven’t had time to do it “right” and so I don’t do it at all.

From TW p 115
Dear Lord, I confess that I have acted as if my body belongs to me. I have insisted on eating what I’ve wanted when I wanted it. Truthfully, Lord, I don’t like where I am. I am ready to release my grip on my body and food to You. Please break me where I am proud and strengthen me where I am weak so I can surrender fully to You and to the power of Your transforming grace. I pray that You will cleanse my heart and heal me from within. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 12 (again)

I will read and discuss the Day 12 reading later today. I just wanted to get this started so at least SOMETHING gets posted. I have to work today (from home), so I’m not going to have the normal time to study and write that I normally do on the weekends.

To get us started, I want to give you a link to Heidi’s journal entry for today. I have been “eating the seed” for a LONG, LONG time now. I am praying that this time through, I learn to sow it.

 

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8:00a – 0 to 6
Scrambled egg, bacon, coffee w/creamer & sugar
I still tend to eat until I begin to feel something in the full range, which by then is past 5.

Lunch – 0 to 7
Arby’s stuff

Dinner – 0 to 7
Beef roast, acorn squash, lemonade

9:00p – 3 to 7
Halloween candy & water

Today was another really rough day. Followed what I believe to be the Holy Spirit guidance this morning, and yet the rest of my day really, really sucked. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. I just want the day to be over and get a better shot at tomorrow….

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 12

8:00a-9:00a: ? to 4
1/4 piece of ww toast w/PB & applesauce, 1 1/3 mug of coffee w/creamer & sugar
Had a couple bites of my toast, but mostly just coffee. Threw the rest out ’cause I was impacted so clearly by my reading this morning. I am struggling with balance in my life. Too much to do – work, home & kid care, personal stuff (aka email, blogging, reading). A lack of sleep is impacting this all too. I need to start acting deliberately and hammering out these tasks I am procrastinating. So, I will try very hard to post here – but I feel I am being attacked on all sides right now. I am going to try really hard to read and post on Day 12 here because I have committed to it. Thanks for sticking with me!

God’s response this morning

I’m in the middle of doing my time with God, but wanted to share the first thing he gave me when I opened my Bible this morning:

“Come now, let us argue this out,” says the Lord. “No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool. If you will obey me and let me help you, then you will have plenty to eat. But if you keep turning away and refusing to listen, you will be destroyed by your enemies. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
– Isaiah 1:18-20

“No matter how deep…I can remove it”
This speaks directly to my disgust and despair over my complete and utter failure to change my behavior. God is telling me “I CAN do it. There’s nothing I can’t do in dealing with your sin.”

“If you obey me and let me help you….”
This feels like a Father pleading with a child. “Just let me HELP you.” I can easily imagine a situation where my son, who is 3, is stuck climbing around under the dining room table, wriggled into a tight spot and now can’t get help. Hollering for my help. In order for him to get unstuck, he needs to calm down and listen to me, so I can instruct him on how to let go of what he’s hanging on to, so I can get help him get unstuck. I still have a very strong aversion to the word “obey”, so I will reword it… “If you just listen to me, and do exactly what I’m telling you, and let me help you…” That’s obedience. God doesn’t give commands for his amusement. It’s not like I want my son to be a robot and I can sit and give crazy little arbitrary commands to watch him be under my control. That’s not what parenting is. God so desperately wants to help me out of this quagmire I am in, but until I relax, listen, and follow his instructions (aka obey) I’m gonna be stuck.

“…then you will have plenty to eat.”
This made me laugh in surprise and cry in relief that he does, indeed, hear me. I prayed a quick begging prayer when I opened my Bible that I would find something that would speak to me. So, that fear that I have, that giving up food will somehow mean that I will starve…well, this spoke directly to that. It is amazing to me that God will give me verses sometimes that are EXACTLY to me at that particular moment.

“If you keep turning away and refusing to listen…”
How many times do I say something like this to my son? “If you just LISTEN to Mommy, I can help you!” God’s very clear that he can only help me if I cooperate. There’s a lot of power in this statement. I have the freedom at any point in time, to turn away from what God’s saying to me. He isn’t forcing me into this relationship. I don’t HAVE to acknowledge Him at all. But if I DO want to be in a relationship with Him…if I want everything that comes with the package of being a Child of God…then I have to relate with him. I need to listen. I need to participate. I need to interact. If I keep cutting off the relationship when I don’t like what I’m hearing, then I’m free to do that, but there are results, outcomes, consequences that have to come of it.

“…you will be destroyed by your enemies.”
This is the consequence. I will lose the fight with temptation. I will give in and perpetually destroy my physical body. That usually, in turn, affects my relationship with my husband (because I’m angry about failing AND being fat), my son (I end up more impatient with him for not listening – but know I’m the same and get angry with that too!). And so on.

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This cause and effect scenario is just a fact of life. I find it interesting that the last sentence of the verse is “I, the Lord, have spoken.” Have you seen the political ads lately? That statement reminds me of what the politicians always say “I am [POLITICIAN NAME], and I endorse this message.” God’s saying – “Hey – this is for real!”

He’s defining an aspect of our relationship. He’s giving hope. He’s giving a map of how it works.

Guess it’s time for me to get in a habit of getting quiet, listening, and following direction. It’s insane to me that I am such a “rule follower” by nature, but I struggle so hard in this. It all boils down to trust. Do I trust that if I do get quiet, and listen, that God really will come through and speak when something needs to be done? Do I believe that I will understand and KNOW that instruction is from God, and not just something I want to hear? Do I believe that the Spirit will truly make it clear one way or another? And do so in time for “all things to work together” for my good?

Yes. I choose to believe that.

Mini update

I’m here today. Romans 7:14-25:

Struggling with Sin
14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

30 Day TW Challenge – Day 11 (part 2)

7:30a – 0 to 4
1/2 cup coffee, 1 egg scrambled

9:30a – 2 to 4
DD Med FV w/c&s

11:45a – 2 to 7
6 chicken tenders w/honey & mustard; shared a cup of frozen cherries w/sugar & cream w/J5

2:45p – 3 to 8
5 packs Halloween Candy; Can of Diet Dr. Pepper;
Totally stressed out over pouring water on my keyboard in the middle of a super high-profile/high-stress work day. Ate candy to feel better. Yeah, THIS is where I see food as a definite crutch – a substitute for coping with stress in a healthy way. I did a lot of fling praying – not a lot of connecting.