Day 97: Pride?

What causes me to want to lose weight? Is it really that my body is a temple, or is it my pride? After doing my Bible study this morning and studying the pride of OT kings...I must admit it is pride. I want to look good! I want to be skinny and look good more so than look like I have life of self-control and healthy living. It has been more pride than pleasing my Lord because I am His temple.

Father, forgive me of my pride. Help me to know when that is an issue in my eating. Walk near and close to me so that I can become the servant you desire... physically as well as spiritually. Amen

Day 96: 194 Pounds

Don't you know that you are God's temple...and God's Spirit lives in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

Well....

• I was an alternate so didn't get to deliberate.
• My first reaction was disappointment.
• My thought was, seriously God? You put me here and then scoot me off?
• I was relieved when the press reported the jury was hung, mistrial declared, and new trial scheduled.
• I thanked the Lord for not wasting two of my days.

• Healthy I am not...gallbladder attack and lingering symptons
• I weigh 194 pounds! There it is out on the web...Debbie Warren weights way too much!
• God is convicting me and I'm sensing - yet again - that this is a spiritual battle. I am a home ec major for Pete Sakes and I know how to eat healthy!
• I've paid Weight Watchers a lot of money in the past to loose 30 pounds...only to return to unhealthy eating and be right back where I am now. Money wasted.
• The money I would pay to weight watchers - primarily for accountability - I could contribute to an intern.
• God won't give me a piece about going back to WW.
• I am lazy and don't excercise...not even an evening walk with the dog. Pitaful!

I am doing Breaking Free by Beth Moore. This is my bondage...unhealthy eating...which produces excess weight and possibly gall bladder problems. I must depend on God to help me fight this and not man. I must be accountable to a God I can't physically see and not person I can.

For me, and only me, Weight Watchers is not what God wants me to do right now. I must depend on him.

I will sign into my blog weekly with my weight...that will be my accountability...I will see it.

Lord, help me to hold fast to you. Thank you for showing me this is a spiritual battle that I can't fight on my own. I need you to walk alongside me. For this season you are saying "No" to outside help. Be my helper. Be my supporter. Be my ultimate accountability. I am your servant and desire to serve you well with my whole body. Amen

Day 95: God of Tomorrow

El Roi ~ The God who sees me.

How easy it is to forget that God is a personal God and knows us personally. Recently I was reminded of how personally God knows my life and my tomorrows.

I was disappointed that I wasn't assigned an additional class to teach for LU. It would have meant an overlap of 4 weeks in terms which equals teaching 40 students at one time - on top of my ministry.

I realized the importance of God saying "no" to the additional assignment when I was selected to serve on a Federal case as a juror! From 240 people taking the questionnaire...72 called back...20 some dismissed on jury selection day...names in a tumble barrel...my name pulled out...both sides agreeing to me...I'm in the jury box for the next three weeks.

I know it is God that placed me on this jury and I desire to serve him well.

Thank you Father for not giving me what I initially asked for. I know ask for now and the finances to make up the difference.

I worship you, El Roi

Day 94: I Can Love ... even when it's hard

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."
Galatians 5:6

Recently I heard from a couple that they had agreed not to quickly say the words, "I love you" but to wait and let their actions demonstrate what love is. I know that our son and his wife during their courtship made a covenant not to say "I love you" until they had dated one year. Sounded odd to me at first...but I began to enjoy the last comments of a phone conversation, "Good night, I like you ... I like you allot!" Precious. And then on a silly movie yesterday it was said, "Love is friendship on fire!"

Love is an expression....of friendship...through acts of kindness...liking someone.

But love isn't always easy. It does take time and effort. 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 lists all the things love is and isn't. As Beth Moore points out it is by God's filling of us through the Holy Spirit that we have the capability to love. People in our lives don't always love us in return the way we want to be loved and appreciated. But that's not the point is it? Christ loved us and died for us in spite of our sin and rejection of Him. 1 Corinthians 13:8 says love never fails. Love is never without an effect. It has an effect and a power whether we see it and realize it or not.

The challenge is allowing the Holy Spirit to help me love those I, in my human self, have a difficult time loving.

Lord, guide me and Holy Spirit show me how to actively and faithfully love those that "tweak my nerves."

Day 94: Jobett

I am reading Job in one of the devotions I do. It is no surprise that God allows this book of the Bible into my life just when my life is so in need of perspective. Again it is happening.

I feel guilty and ashamed when I question my life and when I fuss about it. I feel ungrateful and just ungodly. You see I tell myself if I were more Godly I wouldn't ever have these thoughts and spiritual battles.

The past couple of days I've noticed that Job complained. Even today, beginning with Job 10:1

"I hate my life. I will be free in my complaining. I will show how bitter I am in my soul when I speak. I will say to God, "Do not say that I am guilty and punish me. Let me know why You work against me. Do You think it is right for You to make it hard for me, to turn away from the work of Your hands and favor the plans of the sinful? ..."

How comforting to see in scripture exactly what I have and am feeling!

Then in Psalm 128:1 - Happy are all who honor the Lord with fear, and who walk in His ways.

We all want to be happy in a happy and giving me what I want world. But the world is cruel and "unfair" at times. I know I've written about that word...UNFAIR. But what was really unfair was the blameless Christ dying for me in such a cruel way.

Happiness is in honoring God. The bottom, spiritual happiness is going to bed, or coming before the Lord, and knowing that your heart is honoring him. I may not agree...even like the circumstances. I am in pain...hurting...emotionally, spiritually, physically. I don't know why God allows hardship when we obey all he commands as best we can. I don't know why God doesn't just squash me like a fly when I whine at him...as if I have the right to whine.

I pray and ask...not because I am God and will get what I want....but because I trust God to be who He is and that is to do what is best for me as His child and give me the ability to walk through the yuck of this life. I trust that God is heart broken when I am heart broken.

Day 93: If Only ...

"If only I might get what I ask for, and that God would give me what I desire! If only God were willing to crush me, that He would let His hand loose and destroy me! I suffer much pain because I have not turned away from the words of the Holy One. What strength have I , that I should wait? What is my end, that I should not give up? Do I have the strength of stones? Is my flesh brass? I have no power to help myself, and a way out is far from me."
Job 6: 8-13

How many times have I said that! In the middle of challenge and hurt I so many times cry out, "Lord! God! why aren't you listening to me? Why won't you give me what I am asking?" Is there even a point in asking? So many times in the moment I want to say, "Nope. God is going to do what he wants and what I want isn't a factor." But, I say that like a spoiled child many times. Have a spiritual stomping fit.

Then later I look back at the course of events and say, "Oh my God, thank you for how you worked in that. Thank you that you didn't give me what I asked at that moment because so much more has come out of the experience."

But this gives me comfort....because "I have not turned away from the words of the Holy One" When the storm has passed I look back I know that because I didn't turn from His words, there is a peace in the midst of pain. I must above all else cling to the words of the Holy One...his promises! If I don't all is lost. Nothing will make sense.

Father, to your words, your breath, I desire to grip. Help me to do that. May I sing praises to you even when I don't get what I want...even when it is beyond hard...beyond bearable.

Amen

Day 92: Let my cry come to You, O Lord.

Let my cry come to You, O Lord. Give me understanding because of Your Word. Let my prayer come to You. Help me because of Your Word. May praise come from my lips for You teach me Your Law. May my tongue sing about Your Word, for all of your Word is right and good. May Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your Law. I have much desire for Your saving power, O Lord. Your Law is my joy. Let me live so I may praise You, and let Your Law help me. I have gone from the way like a lost sheep. Look for Your servant, for I do not forget Your Word. Psalm 119:169-176

The first portion of this scripture resonates within me! It grabbed me and I was riveted to this passage. Yesterday I was struggling but as I worked in the yard, praying, thinking and sweating, I said to the Lord, "Lord, help me! I can't keep fighting this. It's crazy. I'm obsessed it seems. I need your word." And this scripture came to me, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your path." Then I began to sing a children's song with that scripture. All day that verse brought peace. As I began to battle I began to recite and humm....

Thank you Father that your word brings such peace. Your word is the sword of our battle.

"Be still and know that I am God"....so hard for me to do in obedience because I am a fixer....so I must "trust you with all my heart" to be obedient.

May my tongue sing about Your Word!