Miraculous Food #3

By: Candy Holcker

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this.

Are you afraid to succeed? Something about success frightens many of us. I have seen so many come close to their goal weight, and then just quit. They can go no further, and they begin to regain the weight that they have lost. I have also seen so many that lose a fair amount, leave their program because they believe they can finish it on their own now, and eventually return to the program with more weight than ever to lose. Another frequent problem while dieting is to have a tremendously successful weight loss week, and then just lose all control the following week, immediately packing that lost weight right back on. Maybe we don't want to prove our capabilities because if we do, we will be under pressure to continue living up to them. If we succeed, what more will be left to do, except perhaps to fail?

In this case it is called goal reaching, however moderate our goals are, where when we make our goal, instead of delight, we feel a sense of loss. "What is there left for me to conquer" we think as a type of sadness and depression overtakes us and eventually leads us into a tailspin, and once again yo-yo dieting pattern. We might have to go on to more painful issues than dieting if we succeed.

We must learn not to lean on feelings when we are dieting. We must learn to pick ourselves up by the boot strap when we have had a miserable day at controlling our eating habits. A wonderful quote from a motivational author named Barbara Sher is this: "Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day."

As dieters, we tend to focus so much on the negativity of this process. We fail to grab onto to the little victories we see, and cling to them as a lifeline. We remember the failures so much more readily than the triumphs, and that will get us into trouble every time. Once you have made up your mind to lose weight, you should make that commitment and go into it with a positive attitude. I recall Job's statement in Job 3:25 "What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me." Oh, the power of negative thoughts are astounding. On the other, so are the power of positive thought's and words. In Jim Rohn's book, "Vitamin's For The Mind", he states, "We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons."

So we must look at the discipline of dieting as a positive, rather than a negative. We are commanded in today's Scripture to "Delight yourself in the Lord, so that He will give you the desires of your heart." There is no room for negativity in this passage. And there is no room for regrets. We are told to "Commit our way unto the Lord, trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass." If we examine our Scripture closely, we see that there are four steps that we must take first before we see God granting us our desire to lose weight and gain health in this instance.

1. Delight--great pleasure, a positive action

2. Desire--a strong craving that is more powerful than food

3. Commit--to put God in charge

4. Trust--a basis of reliance, faith and hope

These four steps already sound like work and discipline on our part, don't they? But remember that our efforts are only ounces and not tons. Maybe, for some of us, it will need to be a daily exercise and reflection, or perhaps, a meal by meal effort, but God has promised to move on our behalf, if we but move toward Him in these four little steps.

When we step out in faith and we see how God moves upon us favorably, that fear of failure dispels. We are no longer afraid to succeed. When we find a way to regain our body weight to normalcy once more, we begin to see other areas that we can be challenged in, with the same available help from God. We no longer fear goal reaching because we know that soon there will be another challenge, another goal on the horizon.

We begin to see the larger picture that our weight problem was only a way that God used to draw our attention toward Him again, so that we could begin to conquer problems that are far larger than poundage. God wants to have you succeed in all areas of your life!

Dear dieter, I would urge you today, if you cannot yet believe in yourself, to believe in God. He is mightier than your doubts, your fears, your stumbling and your grumbling. Pause for a moment today and reflect on our Scripture, the subsequent four steps, and then give thanks to God for the action that He is about to undertake for you. Our verse says, "He will do this." There, you've done it. You have turned it over into His hands and He cannot fail or forsake you. What you must do now, is to remember, you might forget the steps you have just made, but God does not forget. Possibly you won't realize the affect of these tremendous steps immediately, or perhaps you have stirring in you at this moment the first sign of hope that you have had in quite awhile, but know this: He that has begun a good work in you, will bring it to the day of completion.

Heavenly Father, yes, I have failed so many times before that now I fear success. It is only by Your touch and grace that I can overcome my negative thoughts of history repeating itself. I ask You to help me to take the steps that are necessary to regain control in my life once more and to have the victory that You so much want to grant me. Help me this day to believe that Your power will conquer my fears and doubts. Amen ©2001-2007 www.gracetoday.com

Presented to you by Candy Holcker, author of Beyond Salvation and Beyond Sanctification. Dieters and health conscious may visit us at www.gracetoday.com or www.dietingfordummies.org or groups.msn.com/HealthBuddy

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