Day 539: Saved By The Bell

Ohhhhhhh, Zack.

Okay, I’m gonna admit that I spent an embarrassing amount of time searching through Google images for a picture because I just sorta got lost back in my childhood of watching this show.

That, and there were A LOT of current fashion trends that I’m pretttttty sure were inspired by Kelly’s outfits. Case in point…

I am almost positive that I saw those pants (in a legging form) at Target, those shoes are everywhere and that top would totally be at Forever21. And I’m not sure if I think it’s cool that “kids these days” are wearing clothes like this or if it is utterly frightening and mortifying.

And the best part… the title of this post has very little to do with the actual content (other than the word “saved”) and the show Saved By The Bell Has… nothing… to do with the content of the post.

So, that little trip down memory lane. Yeah… that was a freebie.

You can thank me later when you have a flashback dream tonight of Jessie’s “I’m so excited” scene.

POSITIVITY: I am saved.

I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me. Morning, noon, and night I cry out in my distress, and the Lord hears my voice.  He ransoms me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me. Psalm 55:16-18

I just went through and highlighted that verse and it just really. really. hit me.

There is a battle being waged against me.

I know it. I feel it. I fight it day after day.

Just today I thought to myself, “Why is it that I broke so many habits, changed my lifestyle, lost all that weight, and then it’s like… I forgot it all? Like, the old me just snapped back awake and took over again.”

And there it was in the verse.

There is a battle being waged against me.

Cause I know… had things kept going along swimmingly I would have just gone crazy powerhouse about God’s life-giving freedom. So Satan had to pony-up and come and get me.

Cause let me tell you… that freedom. It’s the most wonderful thing you’ll ever taste.

And I miss it.

I long to have it back.

But right now… right now, there is a battle being waged against me.

{I just started silently smiling to myself.}

But I. am. safe.

I know that God wins the battle.
I know that God hears my voice.
I know that God will rescue me.

So I’m just gonna keep on keeping on. Fighting my fight. Even though so many days of the week it seems as if I’m losing. as if I’m being pushed back. as if I’m just about to be taken captive.

I’m remembering Psalm 55:16-18 up there.

And I’m remembering that I am safe.

PRAYER:

God, I come to you a bit raw today. I can’t help but feel a little defeated at the moment. I want to be over this. Honestly, I just want you to touch me with your magic wand and say “HEALED!” I want to feel Your power coursing through my blood. That same Power that healed the bleeding woman, Lazarus, the lepers, the blind, the sick, the possessed.

Heal me as well God. Please. Heal me. I reach out and touch your garment. Heal me.

But as I wait for that, I will remember that you are keeping me safe from this battle waged against me. I will remember that you hear my voice. I will remember that you. will. rescue. me.

Give me wisdom God. Give me wisdom to know what to do with myself. to know what to pray. to know what to avoid. Give me wisdom God to know how to fight this enemy of mine! I feel him trying his best to put a rift between us… he has pulled out the big guns, man. But I’m trying to hold on God. I’m trying to hold on to You.

Keep me safe God. Keep me close.

I trust You, God.

Amen.

Day 178: You Complete Me

So, I’m having to backtrack a bit here since I have fallen behind quite a bit. Like I mentioned on day 171, summer is a bit of a routine killer for me, and I think most of my blogging was really routined during the school year.

Plus, yes, I have been sorta “meh” about the whole covenant in general lately.

Now, allow me to clarify what I mean by that.

I believe in God. I believe in His Power to change me. I believe that this covenant is a powerful agreement with God based on my love for Him and His Love for me. I believe that He knows my failings and my successes are going to come and go. I believe that He will love and adore me no matter what the outcome of today or tomorrow or the next day.

And there is the crux. I believe all of these things… I know them in my heart of hearts. But there are just some times when believing doesn’t… work. Remember this verse in James?

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. James 2:19

Now, I don’t want to get into a theological discussion about this verse (as I know there could be a deep theological discussion about it) because that is for another time… another blog. But my point is that James is punking these guys out… listen to his sass: “Good for you!” Haha… love that! What he is telling us though is that sometimes our human-version of faith isn’t enough, we HAVE to have what we often call “works”… referred to in this verse as “actions”:

You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. James 2:22

And I have definitely seen that in action lately. I have had zeroooooooooooooooo personal motivation to eat fruit and veggies. All I have wanted was pantry junk… stuff that is “on” the covenant but is not necessarily beneficial. And I have had quite a bit of that pantry junk over the past two weeks (see day 170). I have had bread again, which I said I wouldn’t have. I have even been sneaky about foods and allowed my old-self to resurface a few times and could hear a battle inside of me about eating something when I was not hungry but just wanted the taste… or the escape… or the experience.

But time and time again, even though I was heinously close to breaking the covenant, I have held the line. I have remembered that covenant and forced myself to act according to that covenant.

My actions have made my faith complete.

They have not made my faith easy.

But complete.

And so as I work through this time of difficulty and lack of motivation and struggle… I will do my best to make my actions fall in line and follow the covenant that I have made with the Almighty God.

And He will complete me.

Day 137: Sushi Struggle

For my “birthing day” treat (a tradition that my husband’s family does to honor the mother that delivered the baby on each birthday), my husband got some sushi for me for lunch. I love sushi but I can never justify going to get it and we never tend to go out to eat and get it. I often tell him to go with his buddies to the sushi buffet instead of on date night with me because it is such a rip off for me to go… I never eat enough to make it worth all the money!

Anyway, I ate a little bit of it at lunch that day and it was yummmmmay! But I have learned that sushi makes me very full, very fast… so I can’t eat a lot of it. Luckily, I didn’t eat a lot of it that day.

Later that evening after the birthday party, I was pretty tired and I really didn’t want to do the dishes or pick up, so I sorta defaulted back to my old “stall” technique and I went and got out the leftover sushi to finish. I sorta rationalized it to myself by saying that I hadn’t gotten to really eat any dinner because none of it was on my covenant (which I talked about here), but when it came down to it, I knew that I wasn’t really that hungry.

Of course, then commenced a little internal battle… but luckily, those verses popped back into my mind that have helped me to honor God with self-control over and over again. They are probably some of the most important verses anyone needs to know for the covenant.

“I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial. 1 Corinthians 10:23

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

And I know that I keep bringing them up, but I keep bringing them up because the Holy Spirit keeps bringing them to my mind. And those two verses keep helping me to make the right choices on this covenant. Because I want to honor God. I want for Him to receive glory… and I think that He does through my weight loss and through my telling people about how I’m losing weight because of Him.

Day Seventy-Nine: God’s Way Or The Highway

Today my youngest son and I came outside to play for a while after dropping off my oldest at preschool. Saxon had on his “leave the house” clothes which I knew he would immediately dump a bucket of water all over, so I started to take them off (he loves to run around in his diaper outside anyway). But for some reason he did not work with me to get them off. If I pulled up on his sleeve, he pulled down. If I pulled down, he pulled up. He just kept pulling in whatever direction gave him the most resistance.

Naturally, he started to fuss at me. There was his big ol water table full of fresh, clean water and here I was pulling on him and not letting him play. I said, “You know, this would be a lot easier if you didn’t keep trying to do it your way.”

Well, as I finished saying that sentence, I realized what a comparison there is to this same conversation between God and myself.

I have tried for years to diet “my way” and I struggled and pulled through it knowing there was something deeper going on. Something deep within me that was pulling in a different direction. I guess it just took a long time before I started to look to God for all aspects of my life, including my eating.

So I wonder how many times God has said to me, “You know, this would be a lot easier if you didn’t keep trying to do it your way.” And I wonder how many more times He’ll say it in the future.

Think of all the times He has “said” that to people in the Bible… gosh, just the whole wandering in the desert is a perfect example. Moses sent a scout team into the Promised Land in Numbers 13 and they were too scared to do things God’s way (which appeared to be the hard way) and go in and take over, so they had to wander in the desert for 40 years. And the adults that made that decision never even got to go into the Promised Land!

Yeahhhhhhhh, which way was easier in the long run? Yep… God’s way.

So even though this has been a challenge and a battle somedays, I’m glad to be taking God’s way instead of my way. Because I want to see the Promised Land. I want to face my own giants and defeat them. I want to cross the Jordan and know what the good life is.

I don’t want to wander in the desert for 40 years. I want to have milk and honey.

Literally… I’m really ready to have some milk and honey. Hehe!

Day Fifty-Five: Reese’s Vs God

Once again my post for the day comes from what I read this morning in 1 Samuel 17. It’s probably not a “new” story to most of us, but I got this whole new spin on it for me this morning. Although, I should say that it also might be a little comical because I have this slightly overdramatic and overactive imagination. Haha!

Every time I read this story (which is a lot since my son is almost five and loves battles right now) I get chills when David speaks. He has such power, such authority, such confidence in God’s power. And oh, for too long I have missed out on that- the confidence of God’s power.

But as I read the verses where he tells Goliath what’s what, it sorta like automatically “translated” into me talking. Okay that makes no sense. Let me explain. David has just walked out onto the battle field in no armor or sword and armed only with his slingshot and five stones. Goliath, naturally, thinks this is ridiculous and teases him “What do you think I’m a dog coming at me with rocks?” And David’s brilliant reply:

David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 1 Samuel 17:45

I want to like yell or like beat my chest or something when I read that! It’s just… awesome! And here’s how “I” say it (to the Devil):

“You come against me with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Olive Garden breadsticks, and 12 ounce ribeyes from Roadhouse, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

And as cheesy as that sounds, that is the power I feel from God in this battle against my Goliath: food.

And David doesn’t stop there. Oh no- he goes another step:

Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! 1 Samuel 17:46

He’s not just saying “I have God on my side so I can defeat you.” Here he comes in saying that he is going to defeat and humiliate them. But again- what is the purpose in that? So that the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

And the next verse rocks it too:

And everyone assembled here will know that the Lord rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the Lord ‘s battle, and he will give you to us!” 1 Samuel 17:47

And wow- this verse gets me at home again. Because I do feel like I am being rescued throughout all of this. But not the way the “world” might look at it. Like, the world wants me to eat low fat, high protein, low carb, high carb, sodium free, gluten free, low calorie, low saturated fat, no high fructose corn syrup, no MSG, no, low, high, free.

But the only word I want out of that is the last one: free. You see, God isn’t rescuing me with any diet. He isn’t rescuing me with the way the world expects- the world expected Goliath to be defeated through sword and spear and the world expects me to be rescued by their ways. But God’s ways are not my ways.

And that’s why “I” am winning… because this is the Lord’s battle. And He is going to defeat this addiction in my life.

Easiest. battle. ever.

Day Thirty-One: Fading Like Philistines

It’s really interesting how “losing” can impact my momentum. And I’m not talking about losing weight either… that pretty much always gets me pumped. But, what I’m talking about is the concept of one step forward, two steps back. Like, yesterday, when I posted about eating several granola bars. It might not have been a big deal but when you add up several “little battles” that I lose, then it just sorta… gets ya down.

And my mind sorta jumps to the Philistines here…

They were pretty much Israel’s biggest enemy throughout the lives of the patriarchs, the judges, and the kings of Israel. There are countless battles with the Philistines… some Israel would win. Some Israel would lose.

But… I think that the message comes from the fact that now… they are gone. Sure, some people think that the Palestinians are maybe somewhat distantly related to the Philistines, but hey… we are all somewhat distantly related to everyone. There just doesn’t seem to be enough (from what I’ve read) that really supports that the Philistines are still around as a people group.

And I think that I can learn from that…

In my life, I will have little battles that I lose (like the granola bar incident a few days ago), and I will have little battles that I win (like when I didn’t eat the brownies I made for a friend). I will also have triumphs that will only happen after disaster like that of Samson and the Philistines. I will have triumphs that happen so that the Glory of God might be evident to everyone, like when David defeated Goliath.

But I am reminded…

“Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

In the end, despite both large and small battles lost, the Philistines faded into the past.

In the end, despite both large and small battles lost, my addiction will fade into the past.

And I am going to be encouraged, because God has overcome the world! And if he has overcome the world… then my little addiction is easy breezy for him to squash.