93 days till Easter~~~~~~~~Enslavemenrt

December 28, 2012           Enslavement
                                                             

Too often we are enslaved by something and don’t even know it. Even when we know it we don’t want to do anything about it. We accept it as our new norm instead of putting out the effort to free ourselves from what it is that has a hold on us.

 

The other day as I looked through old pictures of myself, I noticed I have been overweight my entire adult life. Thirty years or more I’ve been enslaved by something I just would not take the time to free myself from.

 

Once again isn’t that what Easter represents is the freedom that Christ has set us free for. Not the freedom to do what we want but the freedom from the enslavement of sin. God put the key in the door of that entrapment to sin and unlocked it with the blood of Jesus Christ. However, for some odd reason we remain standing in the jail cell that once held us. Indeed the jail cell of sin wallpapered with our acts of doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted and ignoring the commandments of God.

 

How foolish is that? Pretty foolish I must say. Every time I eat what I shouldn’t be eating the clicking sound of the key to my cell needs to go off in my heart. A sound to remind me whether I’m going to accept my enslavement to food and bad eating habits or walk free out of my cell that God already released me from.

 

We don’t need to be afraid, we need to be determined to take action and truly find the opened door to our freedom in Christ. Daily by our choices we need to accept our new norm of not allowing things like food, drugs, alcohol, money, sex, attitudes, and more to control us.

 

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Free from sin, not freedom to sin.

Growing Beyond~~~~~~Hunting bad eating habits

Remember Elmer and his rabbit hunting? That's what I am doing but it's habit hunting instead.

Bad Eating Habits …      Just to name a few :(

*eating by the clock

*because its there

*seconds just to eat more

*while cooking

*Socially

*eating after certain things, after walking, during a movie, etc

*have to finish what I started eating

*emotional eating

*overeating after 5pm

*inability to say NO cuz I might hurt someone’s feelings

*out of control eating on weekends

*acting as if I have to eat it because this will be my only chance to eat a sundae, pie, cake, cookie

*mindless eating, eating without even thinking about it

94 days to Easter~~~~~~~~~~~~~Habit Hunting

December 27, 2012

It is now 94 days till Easter. My task today is to go out hunting habits. To get rid of the old habits that feed my desire to eat what I want, whenever I want, as much as I want. Habits such as eating by the clock, eating because I happened to be in the kitchen, eating because I’m upset, eating because everyone else is eating and eating beyond full just because I can. Other things that need to be hunted down and gotten rid of are the habits of eating too fast and eating while cooking as well.

 

The hard part about dealing with habits is the fact that they happen so automatically that you commit the bad habit before you even realize it. Suddenly tonight as I was cooking dinner I found myself snitching yet another bite of food from the pot. There was no pre-meditated decision only an old habit that took control once again.

 

Truth be known over the years of trying to “diet” the one thing that crashed most of my diets were the habits I couldn’t seem to break. Nice try, Karen, but no cigars or candy! As much as I would like to blame all those bad habits the true culprit was me. It was me that allowed something to control my behavior, it was me who easily gave in to temptation, it was me who chose food over God when I knew the consequences. It was me not McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Papa Murphy’s pizza, Dunkin donuts or anything else to blame for my obesity.

 

So although indeed the bad habits have to go I’m the one responsible to make sure that happens. They are not going away on their own, and they are more than happy to stay as long as I welcome them into my life.

 

 

Growing Beyond ~~~~The master of food

The purpose for Christmas is the fact that Jesus is the reason for the season. Praise the Lord for that. Soon Easter will be upon us and the purpose for that occasion is the fact that we are the reason for the season. Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ, on Easter we celebrate the birth of ourselves in Christ through accepting the gift of His love and forgiveness.

However, what about the time in between the two seasons of the coming of Christ and His death and resurrection for our salvation. One year I had an elder at the church challenge his Bible study group to find something to be thankful for each day between the two seasons. It was a really interesting assignment as I made sure I went beyond naming simple things like "I'm thankful for my toes" one day and "I'm thankful for my ears" the next day and so on. Also a challenge was making sure I had something new each day.

This season I have chosen something different to pre-occupy my time in between the two seasons. I will be taking a journey "out of Egypt." Not Egypt the country but Egypt as the symbol of a place of slavery as the Israelites were in, in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Years ago I went through a program called Weighdown or "Exodus out of Egypt by Gwen Shamblin when I did I lost 60 pounds. The focus of her program was to stop trying to make our food behave and take on the responsibility of self-control ourselves. The object of the program was to eat like God designed our bodies to eat, to do so when we are truly hungry and to stop when we are satisfied.  

 
As successful as the program was for me since then I have found myself back in that imaginary place that is real, that place of slavery once again. The idol of food that I vowed to never bow down to again slowly returned and I have only myself to blame for the self-inflicted chains I bound myself into once again in extra pounds and bad eating habits. Indeed the minute I was diagnosed with cancer I gave up caring about my weight. I had bigger fish to fry, problems to solve, battles to fight. I didn't need to concentrate on my weight.

Wrong! There is no excuse good enough to justify purposely doing damage to my body simply because I love food and don't want to exercise self-control. When I went to the Cancer Treatment Center in Arizona they told me that body fat in a woman produces hormones, the very thing my cancer is made from. For every extra fat cell I have I'm feeding my cancer. How nuts is that!

It's time to break that chain of slavery I have wrapped myself in and get back to what God wants for me in my life. He wants my undivided love, no sharing it half and half with food. My total worship, no dividing it up between the donut I'd love to eat or the extra serving I think I need and God. He wants me in control of me instead of allowing Satan to control me with his temptations and lies.

Instead of growing beyond my current pant size I need to grow beyond my slavery to food and other things in my life. Therefore journey with me to Easter starting the day after Christmas. Your bondage may not be to food, it can be to alcohol, gambling, tobacco, sex, money, drugs or other things but its still a form of slavery. As Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

The time is now, to stand firm, gain control of ourselves, and walk as Christ designed us to walk. Time to grow beyond our slavery and set ourselves free as Christ's death and resurrection intended for us. Let the journey begin.