Monthly Archives: October 2012

Facing The Fat

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

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I’ve never been skinny. Like, never. Perhaps that is why being fat has never bugged me. Or, maybe it is because I never took the time to really look into it.

Whatever the case, I spent three superb months with my sister, and spent two or so of those months attempting to get my health on track. Clearly, two months could have been nothing other than a start, but it was a start I needed. I came home roughly 17 pounds lighter. Whereas that may look small, especially relative to the over 150 pounds of excess weight I carried, the difference was obvious.

Since then, I’ve regained a few of those pounds, lost much of the muscle tone I returned home with, and slipped into a pattern dangerously close to the one I had before I left. For all my talk of not caring, I’m a bit of a paradoxical perfectionist. I’d rather do nothing, than not give something my best (very often, an unrealistic best).

Absolute. Garbage.

If I hadn’t told myself I was too busy, too tired, too insert-adjective-here to hold on to the healthy habits I’d developed, I would have been that much closer to my goal of proper health and fitness. So, maybe I wouldn’t have worked out for two hours a day, but even twenty minutes every other day or ten minutes every day would have made a difference by now. If I had chosen to take each opportunity as an individual entity, rather than summing them up, I would have made more healthy choices.

I rather doubt I’m going to get to a place where I tell myself I’m going to do this for the next year, the next six months, whatever. What I do have is one “today” after another. For today, I can take each moment and choose to be healthy. I can choose to sit around the computer or I can take a series of ten-minute breaks throughout the day…and walk, run, jump, stretch…anything.

Most things in life are like that, I think. Whether it’s staying away from someone you know is bad for you, becoming healthy, getting close to God, or just being more disciplined. Whatever your “fat” is, it doesn’t have to define you or become your prison. If we would take each moment of each today for the chance it is, we would make better choices.

No day is a waste after one bad choice (or even more). There is always hope. Always at least one person we can confess to for accountability purposes. Always grace. Always Strength that is perfect in our weakness.

Honestly, I have no plan. And that’s okay.

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Romans 9:16 (NKJV)

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. Romans 9:16 (ESV)

The Power of Weakness

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

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What do you do when you get to the end of yourself? What will it take to get you there?

It’s funny how I’ll know something is true, but spend years denying it. I know I can’t be trusted. As much as I appear to have it together on some levels, there’s just something in me that tends towards my own destruction–gleefully.

Even knowing that I can’t be trusted to do something as simple as brush my teeth every night or take a shower every day (most days, though. Teehee), I still want to get things right. I want to be strong enough to resist the things I know I should stay away from. Why? Because I know I should stay away from them. I want to not do what I know is wrong. I want to be strong, but I’m not. I’m terribly, terribly weak.

Not only am I frail beyond my own comprehension, I also delight in things I ought not to. No matter how I try to deny it, no matter how I take refuge in the illusion of improvement, this is who I am.

But, this is good news–excellent, even. I can’t make myself different. There isn’t going to come a day when my desires will suddenly line up with military precision to the standards of morally acceptable conduct. There won’t be a day when I wake up loving God above all, and hating sin (general or specific) to the point of utter repulsion. It’s just not coming.

It doesn’t need to.

See, when I stopped trying to fix myself, and just embraced the reality that I am truly wicked, I had to fall on God’s mercy. All these things I ought not to do will never fade by human effort. Only God can change me. God, who loves me as I am, just wants me to look into His eyes and give myself to Him, wretch that I am. That is where the fullness of joy comes from … from seeing God and knowing He is Love … from facing the reality of my own brokenness and the incomparable greatness of the God who makes all things new.

So, what’s your story, your “struggle”? I won’t say it doesn’t matter, but it is not the hindrance you may think it is. God knew us in advance, and He chose us. He saw that we’d fail, saw that we’d watch pornography, have sex when we shouldn’t, have homosexual desires, have abortions, kill, rape, steal, hate, lie … saw that we’d willingly and gladly worship all but Him. He saw that, and He loved us … still loves us.

He saw us, and He chose us … He delights in us through Jesus, as we are.

Let’s just be honest with ourselves. We’re not gonna beat those things, and the sooner we face it, the better. God longs to bring us to Him, to transform us as we fix our eyes on Him. He is the goal, not acceptable behaviour. Let’s be honest with God. Let’s be honest with each other. We suck, and it’s okay.

I dare you. Open up to God. Open up to someone about your struggles, someone who will pray with and for you … someone who will love on you. See where it leads.

Perhaps the first step to freedom is facing the power of our own weakness.