Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Psalm 139:14
I will give thanks unto thee; For I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Wonderful are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.
This is a copy of a posting I orginally made at orble.com on March 26. Regular readers will realize I have gone from making a daily posting to once or twice a week . . . to weekly . . . to seldom. I don't know exactly what that's all about. Well . . . I guess in all honesty I've been "busy" with the business of living. I told my husband last night that in spite of revelations over the past several weeks, I have refused to succumb to seeking God first AND last. I made a promise to myself and to God, but have broken it over and over again. I know I have suffered physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually because of my disobedience.
Thankfully, I worship a God of second chances, third chances, forty times forty chances. I'm starting over today. Here's where I am -- again!
A little over a week ago (mid-March) I sat in a doctor’s office with some hard-to-identify illness. There was discussion of white count and IV antibiotics and hospitalization. I was alternately stunned, numb, terrified at the thought that I might not be able to live out my life as I had seen it unfolding for me in the past several months.
The ultimate diagnosis indicated a condition that was serious but not life-threatening. The wake-up call, however, was undeniable In the midst of all the testing and poking and prodding I made a promise to God: regardless of diagnosis or prognosis, my life changes today! I realize now that I could only make that promise, more than a promise – a covenant – because God has been preparing me for this lifestyle change for a long time. I had, in fact, begun the preparation before I ever knew I would care or need to know how to accomplish my goal.
My weight is out of control and has been most of my life. While that was not the cause of the illness for which I am being treated, I know it is a symptom of a greater illness—impacting everything else in my life—an illness of the heart.
I had lost weight before only to gain it back – the yo-yo effect everyone talks about and so many have experienced. I know what to eat, how to eat, how much to eat, when to eat and in which combination foods are to be eaten. I know because I’ve read all the books, researched every new and better plan, done all the dieting, and learned all the scientific evidence behind why every diet “works.”
I’m ignoring it all! I’m not on a diet plan now. I’m just eating properly and exercising. I don’t know how many pounds I’ll lose, though that’s not the point. I know I will feel better, have more energy and stamina and creativity. This time it just feels different.
The difference this time is that I have a reason to be healthy and whole beyond my own selfish desire to look better and feel better: to do the work God designed me to do. It is to live out the plan he has made for me. God has indeed been preparing me in many ways for this turning point. Many of the events in my life have served to shape and mold, refine and redefine who I am at my core. God has been busy within me—in my mind and my heart and especially within my soul. So this time things are different.
The difference this time is that it is not about me and what I want and what I feel I’m depriving myself of by not eating the food I am so addicted to, or my eating because of what I feel so deprived of otherwise in my life. This time it is about God’s desire for me to be the person He sees me as. This time, I want to be the whole, healthy, energetic, dynamic person he sees in his mind’s eye – and I cannot be that person with my current BMI, at my current weight, with my current eating habits, and in my current job.
When we talk about needing to set our mind on something – like losing weight or quitting smoking or giving up another addiction – it’s really missing the point. We need to set our hearts on it. We need to surrender our own will and our own desires to God. The past 50 years have borne out the fact that I am incapable of doing what I need to do to be healthy and whole on my own. It is now clear, in no uncertain terms, that God must be the key ingredient.
Vocabulary changes once God enters into the conversation.
“I’ll go to the gym if I’m not too exhausted after work,” becomes “After I go to the gym I’ll have more energy and feel better. I also won’t be as hungry for junk food, and will want healthful foods for nourishment.” Each of us can substitute the vocabulary for his own stronghold and replace it with a new vocabulary that contains God-filled, God-centered words of renewal and rebirth.
This is about more than my desire to lose weight. My weight is the last stronghold in my life, the last vestige of my own attempting to be in charge of myself and my life. I have used food as an excuse to not be the person God made me to be. I don’t even like most of the junk food I’ve been medicating myself with all these years! I am a defiant and rebellious child, petulant and ego-centric.
What is so breathtaking to me is that God doesn’t care how much I weigh. He doesn’t care what I look like. He doesn’t care what clothes I wear, or where I live. He doesn’t love me less because I have built this wall of food addiction around me. He doesn’t try to knock down the wall, because he knows he could at any time. But he hasn’t done so because He wants me to be the one to punch a hole in the brickwork and walk on through to the other side.
Of course, God wants me to be healthy and happy and whole. I don’t speak the truth when I say he doesn’t care. God cares very much. He cares so much he hung on a cross for me. He hung there, by choice, to show me how very much I mean to him. What I meant to say is that God is not distracted or deterred in his love for me by appearances or circumstances.
God cares so much that he wants me to be healthy and whole and to grow into the woman he designed me to be, with a specific purpose and a gift to give the world.
Labels: faith, God, health, trust, wholeness
The War is Real. The Victory is Certain
Psalm 42:1-2
1. [For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah]. As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God. 2. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
This passage pretty aptly defines my own longing for God and the only solution I have found to remain positive and quiet within myself. In this case, David is feeling alone and adrift, assailed by enemies, both verbally and physically. Actually David spent a great deal of his life running from the enemy, fighting the enemy and/or dealing with the aftermath of confronting the enemy. While most of us don’t wage war against our enemies in the physical world, we are in a battle each every day.
The war is real. Evil exists and is thriving and it has since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and Cain murdered Abel. If you doubt we fight a war against the evil one think about how often in any day you participate in gossip, tell a lie, curse a driver who cuts you off or do something your boss has instructed you to do, even though you know it’s unethical. If more convincing is required, listen to the news tonight and then sit and watch the prime time television programming until you fall asleep.
Still more convincing may be necessary. Explain that feeling of disquiet and sense of being unsettled in your soul. Can you figure why you’re just plain angry at the world and everyone in it, especially those in your life – your family, friends (if you have any), coworkers – the world! Why are you so sad so often? Why do you have indigestion, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue? Why are just plain unable to get up and go out into the world with your confidence intact and your heart on your sleeve?
The answer to our life problems is not found in a gym, on the golf course, at the water cooler at work, on the internet, through homeopathic medicine, astrology or alternative anything. There is one answer, and only one. David knew that: As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God. He has suffered an astounding defeat prior to writing these words. Yet another of the many earthly wars he fought ended in defeat and he was beyond discouraged.
Life is hard. If we allow that truth to rule us, we will spend our lives very sad and alone and lost. God is good. We long for Him, yet we seek out everything else. I use both the editorial “we” as well as the all-inclusive (meaning I’m included) “we.” Life is hard but God is good. Long for him; thirst for him; run to him. Rest in Him. David looked around the battlefield and surely crumpled into a heap on the ground. He surveyed the unspeakable loss of life and certainly had to felt defeated and alone; as if he had let down his people and failed to be the kind of leader he wanted to be. Probably he was bewildered at the defeat because he was God’s warrior.
He didn’t retreat in anger and bitterness, though. He offered up his defeat to God. He recommitted his life to God. Life is hard. God is good. David longed for him. He opened his parched lips, prostrated himself and called out to his God.
My prayer today is that no matter what battle you are fighting against the evil in the world, you will remember that God is always victorious. And that you call out to God, running to Him with all your strength and speed, for the days are evil.
Mary
Labels: angry, evil, God, health, life, sin, war
