I sat in my lazy-boy polishing off the rest of the cheese puffs.
After I was finished I stared down at the empty bag and had an epiphany: “This isn’t you anymore.”
This old habit of eating myself into pure misery was not the person I had become. Food is my drug and a weakness I continue to struggle with even after seven years of healthy living.
When I would go to the grocery store after I had begun my healthy lifestyle, I would grip onto the cart for dear life making sure to avoid the inner aisles with all the cookies and chips. I would say out loud: “YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK TO EGYPT!” (Eh um.. yes, I got a couple stares).
Egypt for me, represents slavery and bondage in the bible. God was leading the Israelite’s out of Egypt to the promised land He wanted to give them. And even though Egypt represented slavery for them, they kept complaining and missing what once was because it was comfortable.
You could say I’ve been vacationing in Egypt for a couple months.
I’m wondering if you have old habits that have crept up on you that no longer fit you anymore. Whether it’s food like myself, a substance you are dependent upon, or a person or thing that is not good for you.
I’ve asked myself quite a few times these last few weeks on how I got back to this place. For me it was just one little compromise at a time. A bite here, a bite there, a couple of days of missing workouts, then three etc. you get the point.
And really, the bottom line is, I started to believe some crazy notion that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. Or that food was somehow going to fill my empty places and comfort me. Temporarily, it did.
But, let’s get to the exciting part for you and I shall we?
Whatever “our thing” is, we know that we know, it doesn’t fit who we’ve become on the inside. It doesn’t match the New Us God is making us to be.
And friend, HALLELUJAH!!!
Isn’t the battle in our minds the toughest part?
If you are in this place of knowing God is making you new, DO NOT let yourself be tied down by guilt if you fell into old patterns.
Recently, when we were on our trip with some friends, I began shaming myself for my weight gain. And every time I did it, my husband would get mad and tell me to stop it. At one point, he literally looked at me with smoke billowing from his nostrils and said, “I mean it! Stop putting yourself down!”
I started to tell him he didn’t have to be mean about it, when our friend Josh interjected, “He’s talking to you with authority because he knows this is a spirit in you that has to go.”
(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. Galatians 5:1)
Holy crap, talk about a word! And it was every bit true.
If you are shaming yourself or carrying a heavy weight of guilt around, I’m speaking to you with the same authority the Lord gave to my hubby: Stop it! You are becoming new my friend. And in that journey sometimes we fall or forget who we are for a minute, but let’s get back to this truth:
You are a new creation in Christ and you are His Son or Daughter that He is making new every day.
So, drop the guilt and get back up.
Delete Egypt from your GPS and throw off those old clothes which no longer fit and replace them with the new ones that do. (Isaiah 61:10)
And get busy stepping into the New You this year.
{Image sourece: canstockphoto.com}
