Spiritual And Physical Training

To start this post off, I want to share a rather long excerpt from another friends blog which I read this morning and it really spoke to me because I am going through some of the same things and while I know what it is I am struggling with, I don't think I can put it any better than this:

"We crave what we eat." (Made to Crave by ???? I'll have to look up the author)

Okay. Read it again.

I had to.

I had to read it three times!

I just knew that they had typed it wrong!

I can understand: "We eat what we crave," but this?! 

I didn't want to understand it because it was too convicting!

If I eat healthy food, I will crave healthy food. If I eat junk, I will continue to crave junk.......and, sadly, continue to be left unsatisfied.

It's like that spiritually. We were created to crave which this books also states because it is written by a believer. We WILL crave something. Whatever we crave, we will feed. If we crave God, we will feed on His Word and being with Him.

And when we are weak, we need to remove what will "entangle" us or set us up for failure. We need to protect ourselves from sinful situations and things. We need to recognize how weak we are.

Currently I am working out every morning and trying to watch what I eat (as hard as that is at college). But more importantly, I am trying to become more spiritually aware. Meaning that I am trying not to just float through this semester and barely make it by spiritually. One way I want to do that is by keeping this wonderful parallel of my spiritual health and physical health in the forefront of my mind. It is actually quite simple in nature, just very hard to live out. When I eat junk food, I get to where that is the only thing I want. After a whole semester of eating junk food, I can literally watch myself gain weight and become fat. Yet that doesn't seem to stop me! Why? Because the more I indulge, the more I want that thing to try to satisfy me. But it NEVER will! But, if I force myself (even if I am not enjoying it) to eat healthily for one week, by the end of that time that is all that I want. Yes there is always that temptation to walk across the street to McD's, but it isn't all that hard to resist because I know what the effects will be and I don't want to start sliding back down hill physically. But as soon as I give way one time, it is over for at least a week. And it is SO hard to get back into those healthy habits!

It is the same way for me with sin. If God gives me the grace not to fall in certain areas of my life that a major issues for me, then the longer I go without sinning in that area, the easier it becomes. But as soon as I slap Him in the face and say, "Nope, today I am going to treat myself to this sin" it is all over for about a week. And then I have to start back from the bottom. And how arrogant and stupid do I have to be to think that. "Oh I have been good. I'll "treat" myself to this sin." I mean, I KNOW it won't satisfy. And I KNOW what will. So WHY do I do it?! I honestly don't really have an answer that satisfies me. And I don't think I ever will. All I can do is pray for more of God's grace and mercy and beg Him not to give up on me.

I want to really KNOW God this semester! I want to be constantly involved in furthering HIS kingdom, and in making every day, every hour, every minute about HIM. This my friends, is no mean task, and one that I am probably going to fail at. As a matter of fact, I know I am going to fail, every day, every hour, every minute. Yeah sure I will have those few good moments when I am witnessing to someone or something like that, but in general, this semester will be a constant prayer of repentance. But I feel like that is the key. As my friend already stated, "We need to recognize how weak we are." That I find is not only one of the hardest things as a very prideful human being to do, but it is also the most liberating thing to do. And impossible to do apart from the grace of God. Once we realize that, everything only gets easier. The more I try to do things on my own the more I fail.

God has been teaching me that recently, albeit in small ways, but still. Sometimes those are the hardest lessons to learn. It is the little things that we think we should be able to do on our own, yet we can't. But as soon as we stop trying in our own power and turn it over to God, he starts mending the broken things. It is amazing, and wonderful. Astounding in one sense and in another, it is really no big deal. You knew He could do it all along. But you were just to prideful to admit that you couldn't do it.

So this is my prayer for this semester, that you O God would be my center, my focus. That you would continue to draw me to you and teach me how utterly dependent on you that I really am. And I know that if I keep my eyes on you, everything else going on around me will fall into place as it should. It may not be the way I think it should, but I know that you will work things out for my ultimate good. Thank you that you are God and I am not. That you have your sovereign hand over my life, otherwise I would be the biggest mess this world has ever seen.