Learning to let God work is hard. Especially when you are the one that needs to do the learning.
Helping others learn
“You are better than this, you can overcome.”
“That is not true, this struggle doesn’t define you.”
“Don’t let others tear you down, you know the truth.”
“You are beautiful as you are now.”
For years, I have told these things to other people who have come to me seeking advice, comfort or insight into a situation they are dealing with.
For years, I listened, spoke words of kindness and affirmation back to them and pointed them to scriptural truths about who God says they are.
For years, I have encouraged other women to keep their chin up, to keep looking for better days ahead and believing they would come.
For years, I have failed to take any of this into account for myself.
Living Defeated
Oh, I would tell others that I believed these things for myself. I would “name it and proclaim it”.
But…I wasn’t living it.
I was living defeated. Praising God on the outside and knowing I had seem Him work in my life and in others, but still feeling this one area was something I could not overcome.
Food Fixation
See, food has defeated me over and over and over again. I gain weight, I lose weight. I’m strong and fit outwardly, yet still weak inside. Then that weakness takes over again, and my outside begins to reflect the inward struggle once more.
I have been trapped in a cycle of food fixation that has had me by the throat, choking the very life from me, slowly with each bite I take.
While praising God, I had bough Satan’s lie.
Stop believing the lie
How could this be?! Oh, friend, because Satan is insidious. He is so conniving, so slick with his words tumbling around in your head till you believe they are your own words. Until you accept the judgment and condemnation he heaps on you as your own voice telling you “Give up, it cannot be done”.
Let me tell you a secret…you can STOP listening to him!
Just tell him this…”I am a child of the King, you have already been overcome and my victory is assured by the grace of God.”
God has made sure you are enough by the power of His name and the redemptive grace of the shedding of His blood.
God’s Promises and Power
Take hold of that friend…the promise that God says you are enough. That He thought you worthy of dying for. That He wants to give you the strength to overcome by His power…not yours, but by His.
That is where the secret lies.
HIS Power.
See that is where I kept getting it wrong. Though I believed, I still was resting on me to accomplish the task of overcoming food issues. I felt this one thing was something I had to do myself.
I forgot that without God it is impossible – oh, but with Him!! Now we are getting somewhere!
By remembering that I do not tackle obstacles alone, I release God to do the work in me that needs to be done.
Let God Work
Now obviously God can do anything…yet he gives us the power to CHOOSE. If we do not choose to seek Him in the struggle, then how do we expect His power in us to work?
Let go and let God never seemed more appropriate than now.
I leave you these two verses as a takeaway…read them. Memorize them. Stick them to your bathroom mirror, your fridge, your car dashboard.
Let them sink in…and let Him begin his work.
Food for thought:
