Working Through What I’m Working Through Focused on my Master

Thank you for reading this blog.  Today is Thanksgiving, 2011, and here you are reading this.  I suppose it is worse that I’m here writing it, but either way this day is about thankfulness, and I’m writing about my relationship with my Master.  On the other hand though, what I am most thankful for is my relationship with my Master.  I am thankful for His patience and mercy.  I should have been squashed like a bug long ago for my rebelliousness, but here I am still writing about Him.  I am an example of His boundless grace, grace given after I already understood His gift of salvation, so I am even worse than those in ignorance.

Paul says everyone is without excuse, but still, I have even less excuse.  It is one of those questions for which I cannot reach the bottom; why do I desire my fleshly habits after experiencing so much of my Master?  It is truly strange.  All is well with me circumstantially, and yet there is unrest.  It feels like the anti-depressants aren’t working.  There is no external reason I can identify, and I see that I am avoiding things.  I know that part of the answer is to fight it and take on what I avoid head on.  That helps a lot, if for no other reason it fights against the wrong impulses.  But what is bringing them on?

I have no doubt my Master is with me trying to lead me through this, but will I let Him?  I think part of what I am missing now that was present before was the level of exercise in my life.  I scaled it back because my back was really hurting.  I have added some of it back (every other day), but not to the level I was.  For a while I was not doing anything.  I noticed I was starting to put weight back on, my tummy growing, and wanted to jump back into it.  So I have but not where I was.  Perhaps the lapse and realizing I could lose what progress I have enjoyed it working against me.  It’s a holiday of eating, so I am in serious danger.

Yesterday, I made a pecan pie and pumpkin pie.  These are not weight-loss food items.  I need restraint this week, but when I feel like this I feed the very issue creating this problem.  So, now my “addiction” is seeking food, I see the results, I feel ashamed I’m giving in and not working out, but I comfort those bad feelings with more food… Duh!  When I am feeling good about myself (physically), I am more able to show restraint.  Is that weird or what?  It has been my Master who has kept me emotionally centered.  I know what worked before, and I know how it happened before.  I need to just do it.  Where are my Nike’s?

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 24