To Glorify God...

Sometimes, while on this journey, I fear failing yet again and putting it all back on.  It has happened numerous times.  So what makes this time around any different?  I am ready to "abide in Him."  Ok, so maybe I better explain...  I am referring to John 15.  The word "abide" is found several times in verses 4-11 so it must be pretty important. 

Verse 4-5  "Abide in me and I in you..."  Why?  To bear fruit...just like the branch cannot bear fruit without a vine from which to grow from. 

Verse 6  "If ye abide not in Me..."  Consequence of not bear fruit happens.  Like a branch that is no longer attached to the vine which withers and is burned.

Verse 7-9  "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you..."  God will work His will in us and He loves us.

Verse 10  "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love..." 

Verse 11  "...that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."  I call this "what makes it all worth it."

I know I have said this before, but it really isn't about the food.  It is about my relationship with my God.  When we abide in someone, it is because we value or treasure them.  I have sat here in my own home alone today because John has the kids out at my parent's house working on their yard and I have been thinking on how great my God is and yet He sees me as a significant part of His plan.  I am feeling a sense of brokenness that I have needed to feel.  A pleasant brokenness.  A brokenness of surrender.  

How is this honoring to God?  Because the changes I am making are permanent in nature, I am enabled to be healthier for the rest of my life.  Part of these healthier changes includes exercise.  In the online study that I am doing, it points out that "Originally, God stated that Adam must work "by the sweat of his brow" to cultivate the ground. That is, he would exert energy so as to produce sweat and, in this manner, he would keep the garden. Adam was to work six days each week"  (from Genesis 3:17-19).  God designed our bodies to exert energy!  (a DUH moment once that really sunk in for me.)  We put on weight because we give in to laziness and then our bodies store food in the form of fat, rather than burning it off.  It is a GOOD thing to sweat!  Laziness and gluttony are a extremely powerful in their destruction. When I began to realize how slothful I was, it broke my heart to the point of repentance.  Because I have allowed God to help me develop a lifestyle of disciplined eating and exercise, I feel so much better and I am able to do so much more with even just a 17 pound loss. 

All this requires discipline, not just desire, on my part.  Without discipline, anything I do can become a distraction and the distractions keep my soul noisy so that I can't reach the destiny that God has for me.  Unless I surrender my natural desires to God's control, those natural desires consume my life.  The desire for eating aimlessly because I am bored or because I am stressed will keep me from God.  It is that simple.

The thought on my heart today is this.  God designed me with a specific purpose in mind...to glorify Him... and this purpose will satisfy me like no other.  To be disciplined requires sacrifice but those sacrifices pale in comparison to the rewards of my God designed destiny.  (Queue the theme to the Rocky movie here....tee hee)  Surrendering my eating habits and working at the physical through exercise have a prize worth fighting for.  I know this because I am already reaping the benefits of knowing God in a way I have not experienced before...even in the midst of some pretty hard parenting challenges and physical challenges of my extended family.

 I am so excited to hear from several of you how my personal posts have challenged you to do the same.  I do not speak well in front of people, but I have no problem typing what my heart is learning.  To motivate others to obedience is blessing to me, to you, and God.

I want to share with you the words to a hymn that is one of my top 5 favorite hymns.

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
Hymn by George Matheson
(George Matheson was a blind preacher in "deep mental anguish" when he penned this hymn on June 6, 1882, that would long outlive his own challenging life here on earth.  To quote him:"it was the day of my sister’s marriage.... Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering.” )

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.