Lessons Learned in Weight Loss

It has been apparent that God is using my weight and weight loss journey to draw me closer to Him. Here are a few lessons I've learned so far.

• I do not deserve it

o A vast majority of the time, I am amazed when I look at the scale each week and see it dropping. I am humbled and sometimes feel like I don’t deserve it, because I have never had a ‘perfect’ week, usually in how I have eaten. I could always have had better self-control or made better choices. Then sometimes I get mad about being rewarded for this negative behavior by the number on the scale dropping.

o But then I realized that the most loving thing God did for me was something that I did not deserve. All of my sins were washed away when God’s own son died on that cross, because of my sins, and to save me. That’s astonishing.

o 1 Peter 1:24- He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

o Romans 5:8- But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• I am free

o I am NOT a slave to food. Even though I struggle at times, thinking that I must eat something, or searching to put something in my body even though I’m not hungry. But I’m free. The battle has already been won, and it’s not something I have to fight.

o Romans 6:6- For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

• I can only be satisfied by Jesus

o When I mindlessly eat or walk into the kitchen wanting to put food in my mouth, I will never come out satisfied. God has showed me that it is Him I desire, and I cannot be satisfied by the food. The following verse resonates most with me now, even though there are more relevant verses. You see, I LOVE sweets, that’s probably my biggest weakness. And it’s amazing how God uses something that is tangible to me, that I know I really like, and shows me that His words are sweeter than that.

o Psalm 119:103- How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

• My body is not mine

o 1 Corinthians 6:19-20- Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

• Overeating and eating foods that are not nutritious for me in excess is nothonoring to God. First of all, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God LIVES in me. Second of all, my body is not mine to do with as I please, and it is dishonoring to God to treat it like I have in the past.