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Category: Diets and Weight Loss

  • Wait for Hunger

    Wait for Hunger

    Give us this day our daily bread. Even the Lord’s Prayer acknowledges that food comes from God. Do we eat with that awareness? Every time we eat, it’s an opportunity to show God what’s in our heart–a desire to obey and focus on Him satisfying our hunger.

    The choice is simple: Do I eat with a self-centeredness to feed my appetite and belly and overeat like the Israelites? Or eat just what I need?

    Every day, I have the opportunity to approach food with an attitude of contentment and gratitude, eating to satisfy my hunger rather than my appetite. That means I wait until I actually experience hunger before I eat. For me, that means I wait for an actual growl. For my husband, he knows when he’s hungry without the growl.

    Why wait for the growl? Because for me, after 40 years of not being able to conquer this issue, I don’t trust my flesh, my senses, my appetite, my “hunger.” I’m very aware that I have triggers (like stress, anxiety, boredom, memories) that will make me want to eat. Just the other day at work, I got a little stressed and said to my friend, “now I want to eat something” and she said “me too.” But I wasn’t experiencing physical hunger so I didn’t eat.

    For me, I have to wait for that physical “empty tank” feeling so I don’t eat for the wrong reasons.

    “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.” Philippians 3:18-19

    Every day I have the opportunity to eat to satisfy my hunger instead of my appetite. To do otherwise means that my mind is set on earthly things and I am an enemy of the cross.

    Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 says “woe to you if your princes feast in the morning–instead of eating at the APPROPRIATE time…for strength (hunger)…and not for drunkenness (appetite).”

    The right reason to eat? Physical nourishment, not meeting emotional needs. Not seeking the food high.  And there is a food high. If I’m looking to food to meet my emotional needs instead of God, I am like an addict seeking a fix.

    Using physical hunger as my gauge helps me stay true to eating for strength and not drunkenness. Ask God to show you what real physical hunger feels like for you…and then wait for that signal that it’s time to eat.

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

  • And We Thank You for This Food…

    And We Thank You for This Food…

    When we understand how God sees food in our lives, we’re on the path to overcoming our own food issues and obsessions.

    Food plays a very important role in our lives and in our relationship with God. And food plays a significant role throughout the Bible. From Genesis where Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit to send all of humankind into darkness to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation where everything is summed up…the role of food in our relationship with God is pervasive throughout the Bible.

    In Deuteronomy 8:1-9 when God had led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom, He tested their hearts with food to see if they would obey. With food!

    God caused them to hunger and then fed them with manna. Why? To teach them that man doesn’t live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

    God used food/hunger to discipline His children as a father disciplines his son. We know the story. In fact, we are the story–we’re not that different from the Israelites. In Numbers 11:4-6, the people complained about manna. They were neither grateful nor content. They obsessed over the food they’d had in Egypt: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. They whined about only having manna.

    And this made God ANGRY! For 40 years, they had to eat manna to learn the lesson: that we don’t live by bread alone but by God’s words.

    In Numbers 11:18, God gave them meat but He said that He would give them so much that they’d be sick of it. In Numbers 11:34, God struck them with a plague because they “craved other food.”

    Jesus had his food encounters also. Hebrews 5:8 says that “although [Jesus] was a Son, He learned obedience through the things He suffered.” Jesus learned obedience. How much more so, must I?

    And He learned obedience in the desert and in His ordeal on the cross. “Where Adam failed and fell, Jesus resisted and prevailed,” my study Bible notes say.

    It intrigues me that both temptations dealt with eating. God gave Adam everything to eat with a dietary rule of NOT EATING one thing. Adam and Eve ate and fell. In Matthew 4, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert. After 40 days and nights of not eating, Jesus became hungry. Jesus responded to Satan’s temptations with the same Scripture that God used with the Israelites who complained about manna: “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

    God doesn’t want us to use food to meet the needs that only He can!

    Food cannot satisfy what our hearts hunger for.

    We are unhealthy and overweight because we’ve looked to food to satisfy our heart’s cravings rather than looking to God.

    I’ve often wondered why God made the one thing that could devastate humans’ relationship with their Creator about food. Why not sex? Money? Power? Murder? Why eating!?

    Food is like breathing. I can’t avoid it. I can’t ban and resist it. I must have it to live. Every time I put a piece of food in my mouth, I am tested as to whether I will be obedient. I’ve often said that food issues are harder than drugs/alcohol issues because with those, you know you have to stop 100%. With food, we have to keep encountering it to live.

    So what must we do? Wait for hunger. Wait for the physical signal that your body needs nourishment. And when you wait, you’ll discover all the reasons you want to eat when you’re not really hungry. And God in His mercy and grace will heal you in those areas. You’ll find God showing up in places that doughnuts and chips have filled in the past. You’ll encounter God in your needs and see that He is the only One who can satisfy what our hearts hunger for.

    Eat for nourishment–stop when you’re satisfied. And, if like me, figuring out when you’re “full” is a hard thing to know–ask the Holy Spirit to tell you when to stop.

    This is not about a diet; this is about learning to walk in the Spirit!

    Will you lose weight? Yes, you will.

    But think of everything you’re going to gain on this journey in your walk with God!

  • Why Diets Will Never Work, Part 2

    Why Diets Will Never Work, Part 2

    This doesn’t always happen; I wish it did. But what I’m about to share with you is a rare moment. It happened in a time of journaling, praying, and listening to God. I wrote my prayer to God and then wrote what I heard in my spirit (in italics).

    God, I want to hear Your voice.

    Turn away, my beloved. Seek Me. I am all you need.
    Longing. What do you long for? That will be your discovery.

    I want freedom, God.

    If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
    There is no freedom anywhere else.

    God, help me!

    ***

    There is no freedom anywhere else. Not in a diet. Not in a program. Nowhere but in the Son.

    And I’ve spent 40 years believing that there was, chasing after the best diet that would free me. Crying out to God to help me keep the rules, help me have self-control, help me lose once for all.

    I had it all wrong.

    In Zechariah 4:6-7, God says this:

    “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts. “What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you will become a plain, and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of ‘grace, grace to it.’ ”

    I love this! It’s only by God’s Spirit that I will overcome my mountain. Not by trying harder or by my sheer will. True victory will be spiritual. And God will get all the credit and glory!

    When the people speak “grace, grace to it,” it’s actually them crying out to God to pour out His grace on it and bless it. This continues to show dependence even after victory.

    The NIV Study Bible says the mountain probably included their “willingness to persevere.” That intrigues me. I get tired of trying. I lose focus. And the cycle continues.

    I’m learning to stop trying in my own strength and to instead lean into God’s Spirit. When I do this, the freedom I find is the only freedom that will last. Amen to that!