Listen for God’s Voice

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;

Don’t try to figure everything out on your own.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go.

He is the one who will keep you on track.

Proverbs 3: 5-12

This is such a great scripture today! I am learning that I can plan and dream about the wild purpose God has given me, but unless I lay it down at the cross, it is no more than ashes.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart… It all starts with God and ends with God. I just need to trust from the bottom of my heart. God has this. He has always had this. He conquered sin at the cross so that we could live free of that same sin. I am free. Now I just need to believe it.

Don’t try to figure out everything on your own… I’m not sure where this journey will take me. I’d like to think it will take me straight to slim and beautiful but I know that God has far more in store for me than transient things such as these. There is a far bigger spiritual lesson to learn, one that I can not even begin to imagine. But I don’t need to figure it all out now. I am taking that first step at the bottom of the mountain. I do not know where it will lead me, and I know I have an uphill struggle ahead of me. But God has this. He knows the perils and upsets and difficulties that lie ahead. He has already figured out how I will conquer them. I just need to trust.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go… I love this, particularly when applied to food. There are so many temptations, so many areas in which I will fall. But there is a solution to keeping on track. Listen to God, whatever I am doing (eating, shopping, cooking) and everywhere I go (church, out with friends, at home with family). All those difficult situations around food where to say no would be rude, or to say yes would destroy my health. How to I discern which is which? I must listen for God’s still quiet voice to tell me. He has the answer to every temptation, in every situation and in every place I go. He has the answer.

He’s the one who will keep you on track… For the past three decades I have tried and failed countless times to keep on the right track eating wise. I have such a string of failures behind me, I wonder how I can even try again…can my wearied body take any more failure? Now I understand. I have always tried to do it in my own strength. Now I realise that I was never meant to do this alone. It is God who will keep me on track. Not my rather weak self will, but God. Not my ability to say no, but God. Not the rule of any addiction I might have, but God. It’s God. And it always has been. He’s got this.

Trust. Listen. Succeed.

Running to God

Run to God! Run from evil!

Your body will glow with health,

Your very bones will vibrate with life!

Honour God with everything you own.

Proverbs 3 v 5-12

Run to God.. Running suggests speed. It is an instruction… to run towards God, means turning away from anything else.

Run from evil... For me, food is evil. But food is also essential. I need to run away from the evil part. I need to put food in its appropriate place, and run away from food when it is not within those parameters.

Your body will glow with health… The inference is that it is God from whom health comes. I want to glow with health. When is food evil for me? When do I need to run away from it? My body right now does not glow with health. It is large and flabby, pale and lacking nutrition. It is ugly because, whether I like it or not, I have been running towards food and towards evil for my entire life. I need to see it for what it is. Evil is ugly by its very nature.

Your very bones will vibrate with life… I love this phrase! The idea that my bones will vibrate with life is wonderful. As my weight has increased over the past couple of decades, my energy levels have decreased. The weight of the fat on my bones has been suffocating for them. Nothing about me vibrates with life.

Honour God with everything you own… When I was born, the only thing I had which was my own was my body. This incredible intricate machine which God created just for me is the one thing I have complete control over how I use it. Today, I pledge that I will honour God with my body, and everything I put in it.

Run! Honour! Glow! Vibrate with Life!

The Beginnings…

Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God

Proverbs 1v7 (Message)

For such a small verse, there sure is a lot to get from it.

Start… I need to begin, just begin. For a journey to be completed, it first needs to be begun.

Start with God… I need to begin with God, not alone, not with some weight-loss organisation, but alone with God.

First step… the first step means beginning. It means taking that first step; taking that first step with God

Learning… Weight loss, real long term weight loss needs learning and requires a re-education by the individual. But in order to sieve the truth from the rubbish, I must start and take my first step with God.

Bowing… To God. I need to get myself into submission to God

Starting; Stepping; Learning; Bowing