December 21, 2010
Dieting and the Devil
I’ve come to the conclusion that dieting is like doing battle with Satan. This last month I’ve been committed to losing weight and I found I have to stay away, turn away and run away from situations that would lead me astray. For the most part people understand when I tell them ‘no thanks, I’m avoiding calories’. Too bad we aren’t as understanding with one another when we’re trying to avoid sinning.
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----Overeating and sinning are like waves on a lake. We don’t want them lapping up against the shore of our souls and eroding it away. So we set breakers offshore to block the impact of the waves. The problem is that the breakers are usually mental reasons we make to avoid forces that are emotional in nature. Emotions are expansive and fluid; reasons are narrow and rigid. Emotions come over us with the power of all our moments stored in the whole lake, while reasons muster only a shallow planting in a mental state of the present moment. So emotions sift through them like waves wash past sticks protruding up from the mud, and our reasons can be as easily overcome as a stick can be dislodged from the bottom and carried away.
-----We can apply broader reasoning anchored deeper in our thoughts like we can drive a board deeper into the mud. Then they will have more stability against the power of the waves and will break larger shadows into them which may actually shade some of the shore. Yet, mere feet one way or another from the board, the waves smash freely against the shore just as despair may still wash over us even though we have reasoned beyond anger, or popcorn may win our indulgence even though we have refused a candy bar. Are we then left to drive boards of reason all up and down the shores of our consciousness to break all aspects of the emotional waves?
-----That is certainly a part of our new lives. It is an aspect of seeking the knowledge of our God and the wisdom it brings to our discernment. So the lakes that we are do become filled with carefully placed and well anchored breakers against the lapping of the emotions. It is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit called self-control.
-----But that aspect alone is insufficient. As you pointed out, people are not as understanding with our efforts to avoid sin. People press each other, and situations press harder. They are like the storms of nature whipping up a powerful force in the waves and hurling them against our breakers. Those poor breakers are only driven into the lake bed as deeply as is our own understanding. And that is not deep enough for everything which moves upon the lake.
-----The other aspect of self-control is even more important (but not exclusively important.) Self-control is fruit of the Spirit. As strange and difficult to understand as “spirit” is, and as much as it is undetectable by the senses, it is yet a very real force. The nature of the lake itself is determined by the spirit within it. Our spirits are tainted and brackish from conception. Though they are not thoroughly evil, they tend the emotional waves to much fear, anger, despair, etc., which in turn tends our thoughts to cave into darkness. But when we continue setting breakers in the lake patterned after the thoughts of God’s Word, His Spirit being combined with ours now has something to work with in tending the nature of the waves towards the gentle washings of care, concern, and sympathy.
-----Then, eventually, His care, concern, and sympathy for us will also deal with the adverse forces driving at the surface of our lakes as well, replacing them with care, concern, and sympathy, too. That is the Holy City for which we long and the effect for which the Christ Child was born.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Passing through on the "next blog" button. I like the last line of this post. It is funny how open we are to things when they are not spiritual.
I will bookmark your site and take another look.
Grace and Peace.
Pumice,
We’ll be glad to have you join us.
Gail
"Too bad we aren’t as understanding with one another when we’re trying to avoid sinning."
Love this sentence. I choose not to drink any alcohol, nor cook with it. My body is a temple and I try to keep it healthy. So it always bugs me when people continue to offer me the liquid. Then they try to justify the drinking of it to me. In my view, this is one of Satan's tricks...and he isn't going to trick me.
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