I’m
currently in a women’s bible study at Refuge Church in Richlands, NC called Armor of God by
Priscilla Shirer. I’m a little behind (nothing new LOL) but I don’t want to
rush through it as I would like to get as much out of it as God would allow me
to. This morning I was studying Week 1, Day 4 and let me tell you, it really
spoke to me in light of my current struggle. Let me share what God has shown me
today.
#ArmorOfGod - The enemy carefully considers and calculates your current situation, taking
into account your weaknesses and strengths, your interests and tendencies, your
history and past abuses, everything! THEN he crafts a specific strategy to hook and reel you in.
Absolute
truth right here. The last several days I feel like I have been
self-sabotaging. It's been a little over 5 years since I've been under 200
pounds and now the enemy is trying to feed me a handful of lies to trip me up.
He knows my weakness, knows my past behaviors and is trying to trigger all
those things to get me to fall off track and not have victory in the area of my
health.
#ArmorOfGod - Satan is tricky, but he is not original or creative. He’s always had the same
basic game plan. And if you’re watching, you’ll see that sometimes the areas
where he’s targeting you are the ones you’d already expect. By being proactive
in prayer and girded in the spiritual armor, you’ll be able to detect his
secret plans before the attack unfolds and you can sabotage his efforts to
deceive and disable you.
What I
need to be doing is sabotaging his effort, NOT letting him sabotage all the
progress I have made over the last 9 weeks! He pulls from all of my old reasons
for losing weight and starts throwing them at me. I know full well that I am
doing this so I can be healthy and that there are no ulterior motives like
trying to catch another’s eye. But because all my weight loss efforts in the past
were linked to getting “skinny” because I was out of one relationship and
looking for another, the enemy plays right into that.
It’s
funny that I am sitting here writing about the enemy, who is often referred to
as a serpent or snake and I have literally been watching a black snake slither
through my yard for the last 30 minutes LOL He slinks through the grass, pops up his head then slinks through some more thinking he is not being seen.
Amazingly, every time I look up from my book or computer, it has only taken me
mere seconds to find him… even when he is slithering. Amazing how God works and
the way he uses things right in front of us to bring his point home. What
would be great is if I could always recognize him that quickly, but it isn’t
always the case.
#ArmorOfGod - Our predispositions and weaknesses are what the enemy WILL USE to exploit us.
Whether from our upbringing, our inborn personalities, or vulnerabilities created
by events in our life, these appetites of ours inform the enemy of what bait to
use when targeting us. If promiscuity has been part of your history (wow
Priscilla, you must have wrote this just for me), he’ll want to keep that fire
burning in your body while sending enticing offers to lead you astray.
Knowing
these things; knowing the thought process that has been ingrained in my brain
in relation to weight loss; knowing how the enemy has derailed me in the past,
almost to the point of losing my marriage because I took “the bait”, calls me
to realize that I need a plan… a strategy born from God that will put that
snake right back in the hole he came from. Praise God, my husband and I will be
celebrating 10 years of marriage this July. But 5 years ago, when I lost all
that weight and pride got the best of me, I let my guard down and the enemy played into all those weak
spots. After that I let fear pave the way and decided that fat equaled
unattractive which in turn equaled safe and that is the mindset I have been
stuck in for 5 years, and likely why my weight continued to increase.
fat = unattractive = safe
Now that
I know better and am more aware of the ways I self-sabotage, I know that a new
thinking pattern is in order. I know that I NEED to allow God to reprogram my brain from
thinking that losing weight is a tool to get the attention of others. So my
plan this week is to create a list of (fat =) vs (healthy =) so that when the enemy
tries to feed me lies, I am ready to fight back!
A few
things on what getting healthy now means to me:
* To
be able to serve God in a greater capacity.
* Restore
intimacy in my marriage (cause when you don’t like looking at yourself, you
really don’t want others to look at ya either and this can create an issue)
* Rebuilding
the Temple of the Holy Spirit that I have destroyed.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT) 19
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in
you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God
bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Now it’s
time to get back on track, literally. My tracking in the #weightwatchers app
has been off the last 3 days. My journal writing has been sparse and I’m just
not as on fire as I was when I first started on this path. Time to look again
at my why, make some small goals and continue working toward a healthier me.
I would
love your feedback! Feel free to leave a comment. What have been ways you have self-sabotaged
in the past or currently are in the present?
Blessings in Christ,
~Brandy
