I am tempted to just delete all of these posts, because on the weekend not too many people blog, and I think I could get away with it easy enough. But I am blogging so my friends will really know me and to help others in their struggles. I know self-image/weight issues are huge for women so I am going to swallow my pride and post.
After I wrote the post yesterday, I felt like a giant weight (at least twenty pounds :) had been lifted off of my heart. Then I spent a while looking at pictures of great leaders in the church. Past and present. I was delighted to discover that half of them would have a difficult time tying their shoes. I can still be effective for Christ, I just don't get to look beautiful doing it.
Yes, I did also go back and read my "Tearing Down Idols" post because I obviously needed too.
Anyway, I was driving home from my sisters and this delicious feeling came over me. I have felt it probably 3 or 4 times in my life. I asked, "What is this Lord? It feels like Peace, but better." I was satisfied. In Him. With my life, with myself.
I am sooooooo far from perfect, I pray all the time He will make me Good, because I know I am not ~ a lot of the time. But, I have everything I need in Him. I am everything I need to be, when I let His Spirit fill me.
I could LIVE WELL feeling satisfied. I know feelings are fickle, but feelings let us experience things we wouldn't through sheer knowledge. I hope I get to feel satisfied in Him, more and more often.
Thank You Lord for being so delicious.
9 comments:
Oh my gosh, thank you.-Kristi
Thanks Kristi, that makes it worth it! :)
Hi Tawny, I left you a note again on my page.
"I pray all the time He will make me Good, because I know I am not"
That's the source of the lie right there Tawny. Tawny, who said you are not good? Who? Do your own actions make you good? Jesus said His blood has made you righteous. When you go to God and say "God, I am not good" He says, What? Who is that talking to Me? My Son is telling Me He is not good??" Tawny, you are IN CHRIST. And you don't step in and out. He's not a superman outfit. AS HE IS, so are we in this world. That's the Word of God. YOU are as HE IS. Is Jesus bad? YOU do not make you good or bad. And good or bad has nothing to do with it! JESUS made you righteous. JESUS. The only way for you to step out of that is to say "I no longer want the sacrifice of Your blood Jesus, I no longer want to be Your daughter, I no longer want to be in covanant with You, goodbye". (though He knows how fickle our feelings can be, I'm not sure you'd even get rid of Him that easily! LOL!)
Something in your life, or someone, or maybe a zillion million somethings and someones...as was my case....has caused you to believe you are bad. You are not an apple. Apples go bad. Not Tawnys. I found myself, last year, saying to myself "because I'm bad" constantly every time I would wonder why I did certain things. I would play conversations in my head that I THOUGHT people were going to have with me, and when they asked me why, my answer in my head...because I'm bad. What made me bad? I didn't think it was my past. When I got born again, I KNEW I was a new person. The person who was an alcoholic, on drugs and sleeping around...she died. No, that wasn't the source of the bad. It was AFTER I was saved and thought because Jesus is in me, I should never make a mistake again. If His grace is sufficient, then it must be my problem that I don't know how to apply His grace for my weaknesses. But what if Jesus meant....in your weakness....My grace fills in every gap, every shortcoming...don't focus on what's not there...in those empty spots...I'm there! In the broken spots, I'm there.
HOw did this change in me? I was reading a book, It's called Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince, and God literally took my gaze and moved it off of myself and all of my faults....and turned it to Himself, His Son, the death, the resurrection. I realized it's all there. All of my sin, all of my failure, every mistake I make, every imperfection I have, every weakness, every thing in my life that happened to destroy me...it's all there on Jesus' body on that cross. None of it, or it's effects are here on me. When the Israelites who had been biten by serpants and were all dying turned their gaze to the bronze serpant on a pole that Moses held up, they were all healed. They saw the SOURCE of what was causing death in them, and all of it's effects, up on that pole. When I realized that everything that I thought made me bad was on Jesus' body on that cross...I realized...it's not on me. I was believing a lie. The devil just has to get you to believe one of his stupid lies, and then you will do his work for him! If you BELIEVE you are bad, what you believe will show up in your life. You will destroy yourself. How easy for the devil. I was mad!! Get that book if you can. It's on Amazon. The pure message of God's love and grace, so simply laid out in there, will change your life.
You are not a failure that all of your efforts are not enough to get the fat off of your body. It's not fat on your body. It's "bad". And your efforts will NEVER be enough to wash you clean of "bad". Never ever ever. But...Jesus can. Because He already did.
HMMMMMM. I do very much agree with you. I think I have learned a lot of what you are saying. When I say I pray that God will make me good, it as about that fruit of the Spirit. That He will transform me from who I am in my flesh, to become a purer reflection of who He is. I am pretty secure in His love for me. I used to think I was a worthless, mean, selfish failure of a person but He pretty much taught me what you are talking about. My life is not about me, it is about Him. I am not who I say, or anyone else says I am but who He says I am. There is some confusion in my heart about this area but I don't think it is that big. It is smaller, more subtle.
I don't know if God wants me to lose weight. I have thyroid problems and hormonal problems but other than that I am very healthy. The only reason for me to try and lose weight is so I can look better and I don't know if He wants me to. Some people are just ugly and He made them that way for a reason. Maybe this is for me. I don't know what His plans for my life are but I know they are good and I can trust Him.
I used to have some serious vanity problems. Serious. My entire value was based on how I looked. I was in the Army so I looked pretty good. I would rather be fat than proud and vain.
I know God can mature me enough that that wouldn't be a problem any longer but I don't know if He has yet.
I have told Him more than anything, I want Him to keep me humble. If this is how He is doing it....that is what I need.
So, what do you think about that? :)
I don't think God makes anything ugly:) The word says every good and perfect thing comes from above...and you are from Him...so that's you He's talking about;) I think the "ugly" is in your eye, not His or anyone else's! I highly doubt you are ugly! And I did run into one of your pictures on a response on one of your past blogs somewhere, nope, don't remember seeing any ugly there:)
I think there is a balance between the vanity/pride and the ugly/lowly roads. The first is saying "I am greater than, and ALL that, because of ME". The second says "I am LESS than, and a nothing, because of ME". Still ME and not Him. I just don't remember Him saying anywhere in the Word "I have made you ugly and a nothing and through it I will hewn your character to make you what I want you to be". But it does say in Isa. 53 that Jesus went to the cross with rejection and sorrow, grief and sickness upon Him...as He took it all, and that He was unsightly and nothing beautiful to look at. He took all the ugly with Him on that cross too. So why would you hold onto what He took? And I'm not talking about fat. I'm talking about ugly. Perhaps the belief that you are ugly has simply manifested in fat on you? I don't know you well, so can't say, just a thought. There is a principle of truth in the Bible that what you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth comes to pass. It's how He has created us. With that same creative power as Him.
On the natural side of this, you said you had thyroid problems and hormonal problems. Both of those CAUSE weight gain, as I'm sure you must know? Are you being treated for those?
And lastly, Tawny, if God is not speaking to you about your weight or putting things in your heart to change that area of your life, then leave it alone! Follow the voice of the Spirit, not society. Whatever He wants changed in you will be in His time. If you hear nothing, how can you follow Him?? Rest, relax, and just walk with Him in the area you ARE hearing Him. I had to lay this all down, as I shared before, because it was consuming me. And when it was His time for me to walk through this healing and change, desires starting rising up in my heart. Not just for physical change, but also emotional things, spiritual things...that were all tied to the physical condition. But I have no set "plan" for weight loss. I just 'suddenly' really really want to go walking and am really enjoying it . I "suddenly" want to just drink a lot of water and not pop anymore. When God does it, He gives you the passion and power to accomplish whatever it is. He is the author and the finisher...wait until He starts writing this part of your story, and then let Him write you, and then He will also finish it. He who has begun a good work in you WILL complete it! HE will! and you will be no less anointed or gifted for any of your "faults" either. The Word says that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, meaning, He doesn't take them back. He has called you, gifted you, and they are not based on you, but on Him. You are His choice. That's why you can hear stories about great ministers in the 50's or 80's or whenever, that lead so many to salvation, or thousands were healed in their ministry, yet we find out later that they were alcoholics or had sexual addictions. Yet people were saved and healed?? Because of God's great love for PEOPLE. He won't take His gifts back, no matter what we do, because of His love for the people that those gifts will touch. Are you tired of hearing from me yet???!!
Just to wrap this up with a funny but true...In Genesis 41, there is a story about cows. Fat cows and skinny cows. And the skinny cows were called the ugly cows!! LOL!! Gen. 41:1-4
Shoot, I have to run out the door. Just have to say really quickly I don't think I am ugly. Leah (in the Bible) and other people just have something unappealing about them. God does that. I don't know why. But I trust Him with it. And I know HE doesn't think anyone is ugly. We are all His creations. But some of us live in this earth being beautiful and some of us being overlooked and unappreciated because we are not. That is just reality. That is also human and not important. :)
very true. It's all outward appearance, which man is consumed with, and honestly God is not. Well, if you don't think you are ugly, I blabbered on and on!! but that was a good cow verse at the end:):) I'm still loving that one!!
Hey, I loved the cow verses! :) And as much as I hate to say it, the middle part of what you wrote is what I always hear from God, when I do hear. "I make everything beautiful in it's time, be patient child." It means a lot getting to talk about all these beauty/weight/sin/ contentment issues. Thanks for listening.
I am always here to listen, or talk whenever you need to. Sometimes we just need someone to spill our heart out to so we can find out what's in there! Just jump over to my page and holler! We'll have us some coffee and girl talk:)
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