Manna Issue 3

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this.

Are you afraid to succeed? Something about success frightens many of us. I have seen so many come close to their goal weight, and then just quit. They can go no further, and they begin to regain the weight that they have lost. I have also seen so many that lose a fair amount, leave their program because they believe they can finish it on their own now, and eventually return to the program with more weight than ever to lose. Another frequent problem while dieting is to have a tremendously successful weight loss week, and then just lose all control the following week, immediately packing that lost weight right back on. Maybe we don't want to prove our capabilities because if we do, we will be under pressure to continue living up to them. If we succeed, what more will be left to do, except perhaps to fail?

In this case it is called goal reaching, however moderate our goals are, where when we make our goal, instead of delight, we feel a sense of loss. "What is there left for me to conquer" we think as a type of sadness and depression overtakes us and eventually leads us into a tailspin, and once again yo-yo dieting pattern. We might have to go on to more painful issues than dieting if we succeed.

We must learn not to lean on feelings when we are dieting. We must learn to pick ourselves up by the boot strap when we have had a miserable day at controlling our eating habits. A wonderful quote from a motivational author named Barbara Sher is this: "Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day."

As dieters, we tend to focus so much on the negativity of this process. We fail to grab onto to the little victories we see, and cling to them as a lifeline. We remember the failures so much more readily than the triumphs, and that will get us into trouble every time. Once you have made up your mind to lose weight, you should make that commitment and go into it with a positive attitude. I recall Job's statement in Job 3:25 "What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me." Oh, the power of negative thoughts are astounding. On the other, so are the power of positive thought's and words. In Jim Rohn's book, "Vitamin's For The Mind", he states, "We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons."

So we must look at the discipline of dieting as a positive, rather than a negative. We are commanded in today's Scripture to "Delight yourself in the Lord, so that He will give you the desires of your heart." There is no room for negativity in this passage. And there is no room for regrets. We are told to "Commit our way unto the Lord, trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass." If we examine our Scripture closely, we see that there are four steps that we must take first before we see God granting us our desire to lose weight and gain health in this instance.

1. Delight--great pleasure, a positive action

2. Desire--a strong craving that is more powerful than food

3. Commit--to put God in charge

4. Trust--a basis of reliance, faith and hope

These four steps already sound like work and discipline on our part, don't they? But remember that our efforts are only ounces and not tons. Maybe, for some of us, it will need to be a daily exercise and reflection, or perhaps, a meal by meal effort, but God has promised to move on our behalf, if we but move toward Him in these four little steps.

When we step out in faith and we see how God moves upon us favorably, that fear of failure dispels. We are no longer afraid to succeed. When we find a way to regain our body weight to normalcy once more, we begin to see other areas that we can be challenged in, with the same available help from God. We no longer fear goal reaching because we know that soon there will be another challenge, another goal on the horizon.

We begin to see the larger picture that our weight problem was only a way that God used to draw our attention toward Him again, so that we could begin to conquer problems that are far larger than poundage. God wants to have you succeed in all areas of your life!

Dear dieter, I would urge you today, if you cannot yet believe in yourself, to believe in God. He is mightier than your doubts, your fears, your stumbling and your grumbling. Pause for a moment today and reflect on our Scripture, the subsequent four steps, and then give thanks to God for the action that He is about to undertake for you. Our verse says, "He will do this." There, you've done it. You have turned it over into His hands and He cannot fail or forsake you. What you must do now, is to remember, you might forget the steps you have just made, but God does not forget. Possibly you won't realize the affect of these tremendous steps immediately, or perhaps you have stirring in you at this moment the first sign of hope that you have had in quite awhile, but know this: He that has begun a good work in you, will bring it to the day of completion.

Heavenly Father, yes, I have failed so many times before that now I fear success. It is only by Your touch and grace that I can overcome my negative thoughts of history repeating itself. I ask You to help me to take the steps that are necessary to regain control in my life once more and to have the victory that You so much want to grant me. Help me this day to believe that Your power will conquer my fears and doubts. Amen ©2001-2007 www.gracetoday.com

:amen: That was one meat of the word filled meal! Iam full :re:

:lol: :yum:
I am over at the blog right now and answered something to you on "Boing Boing". Gonna try to resolve the question in Ask A Question here for you. :)

awesome thank you! I'll be there soon :hug:

:) Now I gave you the instructions in Ask A Question. We are playing tag and I love that game.

:amen: :th: :real: Another good article to :set:

Oftentimes the thought for me comes to my mind -- I will be glad when this dieting is over so that I can get on with my regular eating. Wrong thinking. For the rest of my life -- I must rely on the Holy Spirit to control my eating! And this is not a negative but a positive!

:hal:

You have found the Truth---the Positive Truth that sets the captives free. :amen: I fell from grace because I thought that very same thought. It has now been buried with Christ Jesus.

Editor, that article was such a blessing to me. I should have asked you first but I copied it to put in my notebook as a reminder as many times I struggle with the failure to succeed. I have always had issues with guilt and failure and the Lord really spoke to me through this article. Thank-you for posting it. I believe I will start to blog through some of these emotions I have been dealing with if I can figure how to do it.

Thanks again,
Hugs, Faithy

Needn't ask and that was indeed from the Lord for you. :)

I would sure love to see you blogging. The Grace Today community would welcome you if you had it in mind to come there. It is a quiet spot, private, and quite profitable.

This in particular hit very close to home for me. I often wonder if I am indeed afraid to succeed. When I finish an audit project at work, I am sad to see it end after all the hard work I put in, and anxious to begin another. When I build a model car at home, I feel the same way. I must remember that getting to goal weight will not end the "project", but just begin a different phase (maintenance) that I will stay in until God calls me home.

Excellent manna today. Thank you for a completely satisfying meal. :)

How appropriate that this particular article would find it's way to this forum for it is appropriately named. There are so many secrets to success tucked away in this beautiful, well-thought-out article. Mojo, I love that you say you buried "that thought" with Jesus and also thank you Ironia for mentioning it. Dave, I agree with your train of thought because I often wonder what I would have for a challenge if it were not for weight loss. It seems to me the only battle I've been going around the mountain for far too long with. I'm ready to move on to the next "kata" so I must complete this one.

I believe that it's necessary for me to learn to eat 3 meals a day because as I mentioned in the EEE challenge it keeps the bulimic wolf away from me. Talk about what Mike terms a "slippery slope". I am not using this as an excuse because its more of a reason. When I reached lifetime at WW's years ago, one "worker" told me that that was nothing more than a fight. Now the real battle had begun. )My doctor years ago told me once anorexic/bulimic always anorexic/bulimic.) I didn't feel that I was equipped for the battle and now I understand why. For the first time in perhaps forever, I believe a lifetime goal is possible for me. Up until now, I honestly didn't think it was. It's just that if I can get a Karate blue belt at my age, there should be no reason why I can't lose weight and keep it off too?

:amen: congregation. :)