I wallowed in bed this morning with the covers over my head lamenting.
Hating and asking myself this question for the ten millionth time:
Why do you do this to your self?!?
It was time to see the damage. To step on the scale after eating recklessly this last week.
Now, mind you I started Weight Watchers 3 weeks ago and lost 5 pounds the first week. But, you see something sick goes off in my brain when I begin losing.
I start to think I can eat what I want again. I start to think I’m still 20 and can eat the whole bag of chewy Smarties and Mike and Ike’s and not gain weight. It’s such a sick vicious cycle.
So I get on the scale, yup, gained two pounds back.
I come downstairs defeated, plopping on my lazy-boy. With my head in my hands I know the time has come to admit the truth. It’s time to look within and see the real problem.
The same problem I’ve had since I began struggling with my weight years ago:
I love food more than Jesus.
Like for real.
It is my Bestie. It’s fulfilling, luscious, amazing, and I don’t have to wait for its comfort, its automatic.
Now, I know in my head Jesus is suppose to be our daily Bread. But sometimes the Bread takes too long in the oven if you know what I’m saying. And my soul gets really hungry.
The teens and I discussed idols last week and how an idol is anything we crave more than God or run to for comfort before God.
So, yup, food is definitely my big, fat golden calf. (amongst some other things).
I run to Doritos’s, Twizzlers, chocolate chip cookies and think they are going to make me happy. And they do for a whole five minutes.
Then I’m tortured with guilt. And so the cycle continues. (If you are reading this and you are a food addict like me, you are totally nodding your head right now.)
Five years ago when I read Lysa Terkeurst’s book Made to Crave it revealed to me food was an idol in my life. (if you love food more than Jesus click and order this book asap, life changing I tell ya).
I learned and I’m re-learning once again, a weight loss program is not the only thing I need, first, I need a heart change towards food.
With any obsession or misplaced craving, we must first begin in prayer.
It’s weird most of us would say with any other addiction you can’t fight it alone and you need God’s help, but, we never think to pray about our strongholds with food.
Weight loss programs will give us tools along the way, but prayer is the fuel which empowers us to combat any deep hunger within our souls.
When we discussed idols with the teens we talked about our modern day idols and how they can be anything from people, popularity, to an object which actually may not be bad in itself. An example was our phones. It is when we take a good thing and let it take the place of God.
We ended our study concluding idols may give us temporary satisfaction, but they will never fulfill us in the long run.
Hence Jesus saying, “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again.” John 4:14
So, today I’m laying my golden calf down and asking God to be my portion. And I will have to keep asking because I know I cannot fight this battle without Him.
What is your golden calf? Do you have anything you run to or crave more than God?
May we lay them down together friend.
{image source: canstockphoto.com}
