The Mirror I Can't Ignore

Some one asked me a few weeks ago, "what happened to your blog?" and my response was "The Election." This is mostly true as my hours increased and I had less free time. However, that is not all that was going on. Just mere weeks after choosing to document my triumphs via the web I began to meet failure.

My journey thus far has been extremely successful. As you can see in my initial post I lost a lot of weight in a healthy way by learning to incorporate some good habits. I managed to keep it off for over a year and was learning to not measure my self worth based on the 3 digit number I see in the morning. My summer was decent I managed to exercise pretty consistently and to watch what I ate to some extent. But something was their beneath the surface. My old friend of self entitlement began to make his way back into my life whispering lies to my soul.

I say old friend because self entitlement at one point in my life ruled me. I based everything off of what was 'best' for me, what felt right, I did what ever made me happy. This played itself out in my life most obviously with eating. Because I felt like everything around me was crumbling, and the only thing that felt good was eating bread, ice cream, cookies, and Mexican food. Self entitlement plays a sly role, he comes in to your life and shows you a good time, and for a while life is good. You buy what you want, you eat what you want, you say what you want, you do what you want. All the while you are actually hurting yourself. Self entitlement stocks you, learning your weaknesses, then he strikes, blinding you, and then just like that he is gone and your life is in pieces.

It is like being in a room bleeding and all of a sudden scales drop from your eyes and you realize you are the only one in the room and you are holding the knife that has periced your flesh. The beauty of the scales falling off and the realization that you are the reason you are alone in a room holding the knife is that you can then hear the faint knockings on the door. As you focus on the faint knocks they become louder and more fierce. You then realize the knocks are not becoming louder, but your heart is finally choosing to listen. You begin to hear the words of the one knocking saying, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." (Matt 11:28-30). 


The only thing that separates those who live for Jesus and those who do not is opening the door when you hear the call from Jesus to leave a life of burden and to live a life committed to him. Many believe that the path to follow Jesus is the easy path. That if you choose to follow Christ your life will be one that is easy. That is only true in one way. Choosing to follow Christ is only the easier choice because it gives you the peace to know that your are not alone and that there is a purpose for every thing. Unfortunately it does not mean that we will not meet trials and tribulations in fact those are guaranteed in this life. 


My encounter with Jesus happened years ago yet there are still doors in my heart that are locked that he continues to knock on and pursue ever so faithfully. There are even some doors in my heart that where once opened to him that have closed to him many times (my perpetual journeys). One such journey is my journey of selflessness which is continually affected by my sinful nature of self entitlement. 


I admit it, I want my life to be all about me not all the time and not in every aspect, but I certainly want it to be about me in some ways. This plays out most predominately in my life when it comes to food. Food has an incredible stronghold over various members of my family and has definitely affected me as well. I love food and I have never been shy about it. My feelings of self entitlement play out in a very obvious way. I gain weight because I feel like my time should be spent my way.


I am a victim of "you deserve it" lies or "you work hard" lies that begin to slowly seep into my heart and show themselves later when I can't fit into my jeans. So there it is the real reason I have avoided the accountability that my blog creates, the true mirror that I cannot avoid. Because even if no one reads this it is a documentation of truth which I can't ignore. I ate what I wanted and didn't take the time to exercise because I told my self I was working to hard and needed rest. Like any lie there is always a small element of truth, but there is always steps we can take to incorporate healthy choices into our lives even if we can't hit the gym consistently. I could have chosen low calorie meals but instead I splurged and justified it all the way. I even at one point accused the scale of being low on battery because my weight was up.



So here I stand admitting to the world (or to my small group of faithful readers) that everything I stood for went out the window in the past few weeks. I stand here slightly heavier saying to self entitlement "be gone" and saying to the Lord "help" 

Lord help me to continually purge my life of things that are not of you. To continually seek the reshaping that comes with knowing and living for you. Help me to learn that I deserve nothing and yet you give me all that I need. Help me to learn to stand firmly against the lies that try to bind me. Teach me to know what is good for me and to pursue that, to know when enough is enough, and to continually hand over keys to locked doors in my life so that you can fill them. Praise you for your patience with me as I continue to take this journey of being a better reflection of you. Amen