God opens our eyes and heart in direct proportion to how much we open our arms to Him. We’ve got to get to the bottom of what’s eating us for us to seriously change why we’re eating.
As a relatively new believer I was still navigating the terrain of faith—trying to figure out God’s plan and purpose for my life.
When it came right down to it I had the “human doing” thing mastered—but reaching the “human being” stage took me considerably longer. Mainly because my thinking was still so scrambled from decades of painful memories, poor choices and something I didn’t want to admit even to myself—a profound lack of trust that I was really safe in the arms of God.
I love what Henry Blackaby writes about this kind of mixed-up thinking in his acclaimed book; Experiencing God,
You need to believe that He will enable and equip you to do everything He asks of you. Don’t try to second-guess Him. Just let Him be God. Turn to Him for the needed power, insight, skill, and resources. He will provide you with all you need.
Setting Boundaries with Food is about taking responsibility for our lives and our choices, including the choice to intentionally develop and nurture the important relationships that define who we are—relationships with ourselves, others, food, and most important, with God.
Could it be the reason many of us avoid addressing painful or traumatic life issues is because we’ve spent years stuffing them as far down as possible and we don’t want to dredge up the truth? Could it be that it’s easier now to create our own truth, evading the deep heart issues at the core of who we are, affecting everything we say and do?
Our first responsibility is to make our relationship with God the most important in our lives—to trust, obey, and depend entirely on Him.
Take time now to write in your journal about your relationship with God, ask yourself these questions:
- How would I describe my relationship with God?
- How would I like it to be in the future?
- Is God already revealing things to me about unhealthy relationships?
- Is God showing me new directions for developing healthy relationships in my life?
- Have I ever thought of food and eating in the context of being in a relationship with them?
Adapted from Setting Boundaries with Food, Six Steps to Lose Weight, Gain Freedom, and Take Back Your Life by Allison Bottke © 2008. Harvest House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Visit the Setting Boundaries Books website today for more information.
Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, Experiencing God, How to Live the Full Adventure of Knowing and Doing the Will of God (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 31.