Overcomers!

The battle rages on this week with me and food.  I promised to tell the truth.  The truth is I have had some victories this week and I have had some failures.  This is a war to keep me in bad habits that will cloud my mind and make me ineffective.  Feeling disconnected and lonely is what drives me to want to turn to food.

Again, for me being single is a struggle.  At 7 pm at night my friends are putting their kids to bed and spending quality time with their husbands.  I'm home alone.  Many nights I'm okay with that, but I have times where loneliness creeps in for a while.  Sometimes, I have weeks where I just can't seem to pull out of it.

The temptation is to eat bad to feel better, but that only makes me feel worse, which makes want to eat more etc.  A downward spiral.  I cannot lie, this week has been very hard.  I know eating bad also clouds my vision of God because I get tired and lethargic.  I will know that this will mess me up, I will even pray about it, but then instead of trusting God to help me at the last minute I will sometimes still deliberately do the opposite and eat anyways. It is a real stronghold in my life.  Habits that are so ingrained they have a significant addictive hold.

How do I overcome this?  I know it has to come through God.  After all God has done in my life why do I struggle so hard to give these things up to Him?  Like any relationship, its a growing process.  Do you initially and immediately 100%  trust and give up your whole self and secrets to another person? Some of us might say yes, but if we really think about it, in the deep recesses of our soul, we don't really.  It takes time, spending time with that person to feel you can truly trust them with the inner most dark secrets of yourself.

It is the same with God.  We initially see God work and move in our lives in a mighty way and feel like we give ourselves over 100% to Him as a Christian.  He works in our lives and we feel good because He helps us with the small battles and sin.  As we spend time with Him we learn to trust Him more.

But then the devil begins to notice that we are changing and headed in a direction we could really be fruitful. He starts pulling out the big guns against us.  He drags out the big ugly sins that we really like to pretend don't exist, the ones we just can't seem to shake.

So this is going to be a hard one for me.  It is really an addiction. I like numbing out with food.  But I know in the long haul it will destroy my health and keep me in a haze not being able to really see or hear God to really live out my potential and the plans God has for me.  God is trying to help me give it up and let Him be the only thing I look for when I'm feeling down or lonely. Rather than making food or anything else my idol.

I love this verse in I Corinthians 4:7-10

•  "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all- surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body" NIV

It says that because we give our lives to God,  we will be pressed from every side, we may even be knocked down, but with keeping our faces to God, we will NOT be crushed or destroyed.  We are OVER-COMERS in Jesus!

Jesus warns His disciples that they will have trouble also in John 16:33.

•   “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." NIV

Isn't that a great promise!  This lifts me up this morning even in my fatigue and feelings of failure this week.  Why? Because My God Has Already OVERCOME for me and He will help me in my trouble with this.

What do you struggle to break free from in your life?  What addictions or things keep you stuck and lost struggling to see God? What do you have trouble trusting God with?

You are not alone!  Lets remember together, Jesus has OVERCOME the world and the devil, and He will help us too!  We died in Him and we are born again to share in His victory over this world and schemes of the devil.

We Are OVER-COMERS in JESUS!