Tag: made to crave

Fill Yourself with Good Things

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Luke 1:53

“He has filled the hungry with good things.”

Such a short sentence to reflect on today! You might think it doesn’t mean too much other than God provides us with good things. But I think you can read and reflect on this in a number of ways.

My first observation was on the word “hungry.” This is mainly because as of now, it’s time for me to eat being almost lunch time. Also, I’m currently dieting for a fitness competition so food is on my mind a lot these days.

But did you ever think about how we feed our souls and our minds?

I think about this a lot; we feed on what we see and hear everyday. Something as simple as a movie or a song that we hear or watch. We feed on the words of our friends and co-workers. We feed on what we hear and see and look at everyday.

This is why it’s very important to our faith that we “consume” as much of the Word as we can each day. It leaves little room for the rest of the “anti-Word” to enter our minds and bodies.

You can think of the Word as all the good things God provides to us; good healthy nourishing food of course, but scripture and God’s loving words are good for the soul. What else can we feed on that’s “good?”

  • Uplifting songs on the radio and on our ipod’s
  • Volunteering/stewardship for organizations and causes that need help
  • Positive images in magazines and in advertisements (or simply trashing the trashy ones)
  • Motivational videos on social media and TV
  • Following and reading blogs and organizations that have a “good” theme

How can we avoid or abstain from the “anti-Word” things? (This doesn’t mean REPRESSING our feelings or even AVOIDANCE but it does mean making an effort to surround yourself with “Good” things)

  • When shopping, only purchase what you budget for
  • Avoid the candy/junk food aisle if you know that you can easily be swayed and “cheat”
  • Change the channel on the radio/tv when you know something is coming on that you have no desire to watch/that might make you feel depressed or angry
  • Read books (besides the Bible) that explore theology or are faith based; books that might help you learn instead of escape

Fit In Your Faith Today: What do you “consume” that you know isn’t provided by God? Do you purposely seek out these “anti-Word” items? How can you seek out the “Good” in an effort to become less tempted to consume the “anti-Word” messages/items?

This is probably not an overnight process. This will be a journey for most that might take a long time.

Here are some authors/books that I have found particularly helpful:

Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst

Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing by Christopher West

What Are You Hungry For? By Deepak Chopra

The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose by Matthew Kelly

 

Book Review: Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst

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made-to-crave1

I’m not a book reviewer. I just read this book and thought, “I should blog about it!”

So I’m calling it a book review but I think it a better classification might just be:

“My favorite parts of a book that I read that might be useful to my readers because it’s a book about food and healthy eating and females and Jesus.”

But that title would be really really long.

So let’s call it a book review and be done with it.

The gist: Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst has the subtitle: Satisfying your deepest desire with God, not food. From the back cover: “This book is not a how-to manual or the latest, greatest dieting plan. Made to Crave is a helpful companion to use alongside whatever healthy eating approach you choose- a book and Bible study to help you find the “want to” in how to make healthy lifestyle changes.”

There’s no discussion about paleo or veganism or eating certain foods. It’s not a diet book at all and that’s what attracted me to it initially. Also, the author is the President of Proverbs 31 Ministries which has nothing to do with fitness but everything to do with women and how to live awesome God-filled lives. Plus, her daily devotional kind of inspired me to start my own daily devotional blog (shameless plug!)

Back to the book – Lysa takes certain passages from the Bible and applies them to real life. It’s a book geared toward women (but men struggle too, I’m sure) and how we put so much pressure on ourselves to be these thin, skinny jean wearing fit females.  Basically, the lesson is – turn your cravings of food into a craving for God. Instead of trying to summarize the book, I’m going to outline some of my favorite parts. (I highlighted and underlined practically every chapter which goes to show to just how much I loved this book…and I think you females would be wise to pick it up).

Disclaimer: Lysa never suggests that you CAN’T have any treat EVER AGAIN. She actually believes what I believe: You can have a taste of sweets and cake on your birthday and all that…but probably not at first. Not until you learn self-control. You may have to abstain or cut out the junk for a “season” as she puts it (i.e. a long time) but when you have that self control, then you can re-introduce those treats back into your eating plan. But it takes time to learn and apply that self-control and discipline, no matter what “diet” you’re on.

  • If we want to conquer our cravings, we’ll have to redirect them to God.
  • Lysa discusses our “Want To.” In other words, we all know what to do to lose weight, don’t we? It’s the fact that we don’t “want to” change enough to do it. She says it’s about “recalibrating our souls so we want to change.” So she lists a few ways we need to Find our Want To:

1. Spiritually – Shallow desires produce only shallow efforts. Seek a spiritual want to empowered by God Himself. In other words, don’t use the vanity seeking reasons to lose weight. That will only get you so far. Just saying “Oh I want to look good in a bikini” is a vanity seeking reason. Besides, who DOESN’T want to look good in a bikini? Dig deeper.

2. Physically – Turn those spiritual insights into practical choices. As I’ve mentioned a few times, our weight is a direct reflection of our choices and our health. Whatever spiritual perspectives we read about are awesome for our mind and our soul, but you have to put the healthy food choices into practice to make it work.

3. Mentally – We were made for more than compromise. We were made for God’s promises in every area in our lives. Stop settling and thinking: Well this is just the way I’m meant to be. I’m meant to be overweight, there’s nothing I can do about it so I might as well not even try.  Enough with the self-pity talk. We were made for more and we can do better than settling for garbage food and garbage quick fixes.

  • God, not food, is who is in control of me. Food can fill our stomachs, but never our souls.
  • We grow closer to God by learning the powerful principle of denying ourselves things that distract us and hold us back from following. We grow closer to God as we learn to look and act more and more like Him. The bible calls this participating in His divine nature.
  • As you go to get on the scale once a week – Define your week by obedience, not by a number on the scale.
  • Confession from the author that I thought was interesting and applicable to all of us: I depended on food for comfort more than I depended on God.
  • Embrace the benefits (of exercise) instead of resisting the hardship. (This is definitely worth an entire blog post in the near future)
  • There is a good reason we must face our temptations (food, addictions, drugs, sex, etc). The struggle to say no may be painful in the moment, but it is working out something magnificent within us. Asking ourselves, “This feels good now, but how am I going to feel in the morning?”
  • On Idolatry and Food: Expecting anything outside the will of God to satisfy us is idolatry. Nutrition, which is food’s intended purpose, means consuming proper portions of healthy choices that enable our bodies to function properly. Idolatry, in the case of food, means the consumption of ill-sized portions and unhealthy choices because we feel like we deserve it or need it to feel better. We are to flee the control food can have over our lives. If we flee from the pattern of idolizing food and stop depending on food to make us feel emotionally better, we will be able to more clearly see the way our God promises to provide when we are tempted.

There is so much more that I could quote as Lysa had countless examples of scripture that could be applied to so many situations we might find ourselves in as we attempt to eat healthy and lose weight. I might take a few of her examples and apply them to my other blog since I feel it might be more applicable there. (trying to keep my faith and fitness separate although, to me, they go hand in hand).

I highly encourage all women of faith to purchase this book, regardless of where you are in your journey to be healthy. The book was/is so popular, the author wrote a study guide and a ton of other resources to go along with it.

I read this book in less than a week. And anyone who knows me knows I don’t read that quickly unless I REALLY like a book so, for what it’s worth!

 

Stop circling this mountain…

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Deuteronomy 2:3

Then at last the Lord said to me, “You have been wandering around in this hill country long enough; now turn to the north.”

Different translations read: “You have circled this mountain long enough; now turn north.”

The point is clear either way you translate it – God doesn’t like us to play the victim. He’d like us to stop with the self-pity, the fear, the pride, the negativity that can paralyze us. He’d like us to stop circling whatever mountain it is we are on, and go in a different direction.

From the book “Made to Crave” by Lysa Terkeurst – the author quotes a friend named Ruth Graham who has this to say:

Either we ca be victimized and become victims, or we can be victimized and rise above it. Often it is easier to play the victim than take off our masks and ask for help. We get comfortable with our victim status. It becomes our identity and is hard to give up. The Israelites often played the the victim card, and I love what God finally tells them: Turn North! It’s time to move on! Taking off our masks takes courage, but if we don’t do it, we will remain in our victim status and end up stunted.

Do you find yourself claiming to be a victim of your circumstances?

Social Status: I’m too nice to people so I allow friends to take advantage of me. Why do they do this to me?

Health Status: I’m overweight because I have bad genetics. It’s not fair that other people can eat whatever they want and never gain a pound!

Financial Status: I have so much debt that I accumulated over the years. I don’t get paid enough by my job to pay it off!

Marriage/Single Status: I lost so much in the divorce, I have to start at square one! It’s not my fault that it happened! Or, I don’t understand why I’m still single when all my friends are married with kids. Why is it so for me to meet the right person?

Fit in your Faith Today: God is telling you to stop toiling the mountain that your on and start in a NEW direction. It’s a new year. The start of a new chapter in your book of 365 pages. Are you going to stay wandering in the desert of self pity and victimization? Or are you going to heed God’s word and start a new path?