-
The Escape Hatch
One of the obstacles to changing bad habits into good is the length of time it takes to change it. I know all about this because I am trying to lose 30 pounds that do not want to go. I have been trying to lose this weight for 3 years. I have done everything I can to this point from monitoring my heart rate to adding extra protein to subtracting good foods. Nothing I have tried has worked up to this point. I weight trained for a year but gained more weight most likely because my heart rate monitor was lying to me. It was an expensive piece of equipment that counts steps and when I put the monitor on my chest it measures how many calories I have used during the work out. The monitor was telling me I was burning between 2,200 and 2,500 calories per day. As a result I increased my calorie intake to 1,800. 2,500 minus 1,800 still leaves 700 calories per day deficit. Each pound is 350 calories so that means at the very least I should have lost two pounds per week. O, my lovelies, how I wish that where so. This menopausal woman will not be beat though.
I have been tempted to throw in the towel. I have been tempted to eat everything my eyes behold. I have been tempted to stop exercising. I have been tempted to move on and just accept myself the way I am because I was made this way, was I not? No, I was not! I was made to be a conqueror. I was made to be free from every temptation. God has said to me, “no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) This verse tells me I can conquer any temptation. It tells me through seeing and listening I can overcome. This verse gives me hope and it gives me my plan.
The Hope
Our hope is twofold in this verse. First, it is that other people who live on this earth are tempted in the same way I am. I witness that daily. I go to the gym to witness many people who have begun the process of getting healthy and I see in the world those who have not started yet. The temptation to eat and sit is great for everyone. I have previously lost a lot of weight but have gained some back because I have not yet conquered this temptation. This is common to man so I am not alone in this struggle, my first hope. The second hope is God will not allow me to be tempted beyond what I can handle. What a wonderful piece of knowledge to have. When we are tempted by humans and the devil God steps in at the right time, in the right way, to help us overcome the temptation. He will let it get to the limit to build our strength and our resolve. There are sweet chips at the end of my table now from Thanksgiving weekend. I look at them and am tempted. I think to myself, “Why don’t I hide these chips?” Then I say to myself, “If I hide them the temptation will go away and when I see them in the cupboard I will not be able to overcome the temptation and eat some.” I am working out my overcomer muscles. I pray that God will strengthen my muscles so I will be able to flex it in public places where I cannot hide the food but must be able to resist it. I have my plan.
The Plan
The plan is to do what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. It is God’s plan to make an escape for me I just need to recognize it. My plan of escape before was to hide the sweets in the cupboard or at the back of the fridge but it did not work. I found them and ate them. I saw them and ate them. This time around I am relying on God for the plan of escape. He has been directing me to do what He wants me to do and I do it. Sometimes, it does not make sense in my limited mind but what He is doing is going to work because I have seen this work many times before. Leaving yummy chips on the table in full view did not make sense to me. I felt the purpose was being defeated but they have been there all week and I only picked them up once. When I did eat them guilt laid upon me like a fog. I could only eat five or six and my stomach began to ache. I thanked Jesus for the stomach ache, put the chips down and went to my Jesus Room to read the Life Skills Encyclopedia. The stomach ache was my escape on this day. His plan to build up my overcomer muscle worked on that day and every day since. I remember that ache every time I look at those chips. God used the same escape on me when He wanted me to quit drinking. When His plan works I allow it to deter me from future temptation.
The Hatch
The Life Skills Encyclopedia has plenty of information in it to help us escape from temptation yet we have to learn there is always hope and always a plan. Those people who do not have a hope continue in their sin for a lack of hope they will be free of it. Let that not be you because you have a hope and a plan for your future (Jeremiah 29:11). We need to learn to fall under that plan so we can see the escape. Would you have seen a painful stomach as an escape? What about a headache or a broken leg? There are plenty of stories on the net about how God has made an escape for someone in the oddest place at the oddest time. Sometimes, we don’t even know why the escape was made until one day God opens our eyes and viola, we see it. You see what could have been but wasn’t because God pushed you through the escape hatch. Test God this week. Ask Him what He wants you to do that you had previously been unable to overcome. Ask Him to open your eyes to your escape then take it. You must continue to take it because a habit is not formed in one day nor will a temptation be overcome in one day. My sore stomach deterred me from eating the chips to avoid the temptation of eating what I am not supposed to eat. I choose to not eat the food rather than eat through the sore stomach. The Lord has our back. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle and with any temptation He provides an escape hatch. Recognize the hatch and keep using it until the temptation is not a temptation any more.
-
Self-Serving Self
The Nothing
Leola is thinking about so many things lately that she cannot concentrate on one in particular. She is thinking about courage. How much courage does it take to be in the will of God and to be completely dependent on God? She is thinking about shallow loving. Her skills to love are shallow and she wants to love deeper. She is thinking about when God is going to use her to teach life skills again. Her mind races more often now than before. So much so that she cannot think well enough even to write her blog. She started with courage and couldn’t figure out what to say in the end. She decided to keep the idea for a future blog. The concept is lost to her. She is not sure how she will come out the other side of this whole brain fart days but she does know one thing – God knows everything and He knows about this too.
What subject does He want her to write about? If I go into the Bible and finger pick a verse will it give her revelation? Will anyone miss it if she didn’t post a blog? She is resting on the idea that this is a good thing because she is not as frustrated as she used to be. In the olden days she would have spent hours on the computer typing away and throwing it all away. She would shout at God because He is the one who gave her this talent to write in the first place. If he wants her to write He will give her the ideas but they all seem so far away. There is nothing!
In the fifteen years I’ve written for God I have had many days where I couldn’t write a thing. All of the ideas work out to nothing so I have come to one and only one conclusion when this happens – I have begun to rely on myself to do the writing. Proverbs 3:5 says we should trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding. When our own understanding takes over it is hard to trust in God. The work that we do, as good as it sounds, is not the work of God but the work of ourselves. It is self-serving even if it is for God. Courage to do what He wants us to do comes from Him alone. Deep love for His people will also come from Him. When God asks us to do something He will provide the way to do it. All we have to do is obey and trust.
The Worthlessness of Understanding Understanding!
There have been many times when Leola thought she was doing the will of God but she was doing what she had understood His will to be. She thinks about courage and thinks about shallow love but knows that even those huge topics belong to God. Leola cannot have courage to do what the folks in the book of Acts did if God has not gone before her to get the people ready to receive her. She will never love anyone with any kind of depth until God gives her the understanding to do it. She has been racking her brain to figure out how to do these things and cannot. They are to deep for her. Her understanding is worthless to her because her understanding proves she doesn’t trust God enough to take care of this in His time. How she has been working hard to do what she believes God is asking her to do. Leola has got to relax and let God do the work. She is learning this concept as she learns how worthless even her understanding of her understanding is. She is reminded of a Psalm she read and will now memorize because it speaks to these times. Psalm 131 says Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters nor with things to profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Leola, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. [modifications mind] She has read this before and knew the implication yet forgot them. She has been talking to God for three days wondering what the problem was when all along she had fallen into the same trap of self-servingness she had fallen in so many times before. “Lord,” she says, “Please help me to recognize this sooner! Amen.”
There will be plenty of times in our lives we rely on our own understanding without even knowing it. It will sneak up on us and cause lawlessness or staleness in our walk with God. If we are going along like gangbusters then all of the sudden we are stopped check whose work we are doing. If we are aware that sin has crept into out walk with God, check whose work we are doing. Be vigilant about who we are following because we want to follow Jesus if we want our work to be good work.
Meditation verse for this week: Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 131
-
Watch Your Language!
I am more aware today of language than I have ever been in all my life. I am learning American Sign Language and I am learning the Bible in its original language. The translations of the Bible play a key role in how we understand what God is actually saying to us. I am sure that at least one questionable religion has used the word translation to explain their existence. Are they right? No because the translation of the Bible is our responsibility to make. I am English speaking so I must research the Hebrew or Greek word and what it means in English if I am to discover exactly what the Bible is saying to me. Scholars translated the Bible into English but unfortunately the English language is not as easy as the Hebrew or Greek language because we have so many words. An example of a misunderstanding based on translation is Psalm 8. It has a couple of complicated things to look at such as verse 1. NKJV says O Lord our Lord with the first Lord being YHVH (H3068). If you spend 10 minutes researching this word you will know why it is so perplexing to all of us. Then if you go to verse 5 it says that we lack a little from Elohim (H430) but most translation say we were made a little lower than the angels. If you look up the word for lack it is specific to our person.
This being said from just one Psalm you can imagine what the whole Bible has to offer in the way of language. We know that every Word in the Bible is planned and has meaning in its language. The original language is Hebrew in the Old Testament and Hebrew in the New Testament. If context is a great issue for you, as it is for me, than you aught to own an Interlinear Bible of English/Hebrew/Greek. Then you can see how God originally intended His Words to look and to taste. His will is in His Word and He will reveal all of it to you if you ask.Action Plan: this week buy yourself an Interlinear Bible of English/Hebrew/Greek and start looking at those words that perplex you. There are some on the net but I am partial to the touchy feely kind of books. If the web is where you want to read it you can search it out but do take some time to stop and listen to Jesus explain Himself to you in a language only you understand.
