Made to Crave Chapter 4 & 5

First I have to say that the praying is really working for me. I am completely relying on God to take away my hunger. A couple days last week I did even feel hungry. I spent one evening making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob and I didn't even feel like eating even after cooking all of that. It smelled good and Rex and Miah enjoyed it so it must have been. I just ate a few cherries later that night and I was fine. Then we were out car shopping and we had to get something for Rex to eat and we went through A & W and I didn't even want anything there either. I have been asking God to fill me up with His Spirit and to help me want to eat the things that are good for me and He is. I know He's faithful and if you do things to glorify Him that he will give you what you want. I'm so excited to see it happening. So just so you know I have had a few times where I over eat. I know that I'm full but I still want more so I do it. I'm doing the best I can though right now and I know that God will help me get through everything. Yesterday at church I didn't eat breakfast (no reason just didn't want to) and I was worshiping and my stomach started to ache but instead of going to see if I could find some food I started praying. I told God that I didn't want the serpent to destroy the message and the time I had to be with people in church. That I wanted to hear what he wanted me to and to be able to focus completely on what was being said. I told God that in order to do this he had to take the hunger away and fill me up with Him instead. I am happy to report that during this prayer my stomach started to feel better and the hunger went away during me prayer. I was able to focus completely on church and when I got home it was time for lunch so I ate. It has been fantastic!

OK on to chapter 4. It is all about finding a support system. Although I have part of mine in place I haven't completed it all. So my dad is pretty good at eating only God made foods which is my eating plan. He does it because he's trying to keep his sugars low but either way he will help me work through this. Because he doesn't have the relationship with God that I do I'm going to ask a friend to be my prayer warrior. I'm going to ask her to pray for me daily and whenever I'm on her heart that I'm making good choices and that I have God's continued strength. Also I'm going to ask her that if I struggling with a major craving that I can call her and we can pray together to help push me over the edge and give me the encouragement to keep going. I will hopefully set that up today!

Chapter 5 I'm Made For More!!!! I know this mentally but to I really know this in my heart? I'm not always so sure. I know that God created me for so much more than I could ever imagine but do I live me life that way. I want too but it's hard. I'm working on it and this is part of my first step. I feel like I need to get my weight and eating habits into place first and while doing that I'm developing a deeper and richer relationship with God. Then I will be able to know what He has for me and I will be in a place where I can do it.

In chapter 5 Lysa talks about living in Truth. Not our version of the truth but the real Truth. God did not create me to live in bondage to unhealthy eating habits or weight that holds me back. I want to be the mom that He has called me to be where I can run and play with Rex without feeling so tired and worn out afterwards. That's the Truth! God wants be to be what He's made me to be and that is living in complete FREEDOM! That's what I want!

She uses the scripture Ephesians 1:17-20 (which I highlight in my Bible several months ago) to show us what we need to do to help achieve this.

I keep asking the God of Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you will know him better. I pray also that you will have greater understanding in your heart so you will know the hope to which he has called us and that you will know how rich and glorious are the blessings God has promised his holy people. And you will know that God's power is very great for us who believe. That power is the same as the great strength God used to raise Christ from the dead and put his at his right side in the heavenly world.

She then breaks it into 4 areas so we can have simple things to do. I will share these with you but really you won't get everything you need from my blog. The book goes so much deeper. 

The first one is Be Persistent! Ask God over and over and over again for what you need. I have been doing this. Praying daily and several times a day for his strength. Now I'm going to be adding His wisdom and power too because those are very important to have during this too. I think that being persistent is for us to keep us reminded that God is there and He will do what we want as long as the focus is on Him. In this world it is to easy to get distracted with non godly things and then our focus changes. If we are persistently praying for things than we are in constant communiacation  with God and than our focus is on Him and not this world.

The second one is Embrace Your True Identity! This is the way God sees you. God sees you as His child. Complete! Completely forgiven, accepted, made-new, loved, confident, beautiful and so many other good things. This is important to remember because in this world we can think they are outcasts, broken, unloved, worthless, ugly, fat and so many other negative things. Embracing this new identity can change the outlook of your eyes and see the world and your life in new way. This is something I have been doing for several months now and it has changed so much in my life!

The third on it Finding the Deeper Meaning. This new eating plan will fail just like everything else I have done unless their is a deeper meaning that just trying to be thinner. My deeper meaning is to grow closer to God and to know who He really is. It's also so I can live for His purpose and not my own. Knowing Him more will allow me to know where I need to go. 

The fourth is to Discover a Hope and Power Like No Other! We can hope all we want but without the power that God can give us that hope is worthless. It will never turn into anything else but hope. If we include God's power to our hopes than we can accomplish anything in God's will. 

So I have stayed off the scale for this journey. I'm afraid that if I continue to get on the scale daily like I was that I will lose the focus on God but I will also become discouraged. I'm just going to continue to focus on eating what God created and enjoy the deeper relationship with Him so that  I can fulfill His purposes in this world.