God and Donuts

“Only take care, son of man, that you don’t rebel like these rebels. Open your mouth and eat what I give you.” (Ezekiel 2:8, MSG)

This morning I ate six donuts. After the sixth, I got a spoon and scraped the sugary, oily glaze off the bottom of the empty box. Doing this broke several of the commitments I’ve made to God and to myself regarding food & nutrition, and already I can feel the unpleasant side effects starting to take shape. It is safe to say I am not at my spiritually (or physically) healthiest this morning.

The part of me that likes to make excuses says, “Well, eating six donuts certainly is preferable to drinking or putting other mind-altering substances in my body. God can forgive this.” Perhaps this is true. After all, God forgives everything. But getting down to the bottom of it, I didn’t need to eat the donuts at all. It was a cop-out, a diversion, and in its own way, abuse of a mind-altering substance. How about that? Donuts are a mind-altering substance. A lot of food can be. Especially for people like me who struggle with various forms of food addiction and eating disorders.

With all of the spiritual, therapeutic and programmatic tools I have for addressing and dealing with stress and difficult situations, why did I feel the need to plow through a box of donuts? It’s worth examining. Was it rebellion? An act out of anger at the situation presenting as the stressor? Was it simply not having the energy to exercise impulse control?

From the moment I made the conscious decision to get in the car to go buy donuts, I knew it was a bad idea. With every bite of each of the six donuts, I hated what I was doing. The act also brought to light an interesting revelation: eating the donuts opened a door for self-loathing and flagellation, things which now I strive to avoid doing, but once defined a comfortable misery in which I lived. Yet another indicator of an unhealthy spiritual condition. Being hard on myself is easier than being hard on anyone else.

So why did I do it? I honestly believe it comes back to rebellion. Given that I knew what I was doing with every step and bite I took, I have to believe it was rebellion. I’ve seen how well I’ve managed the impulse control recently with food, so I really don’t feel I can blame it on that. It was rebellion. I was unhappy with how a situation presented itself and, in anger, I ate donuts at God. I did not eat and enjoy them with God or bless God for them or bless them as gifts from God; I ate them in open defiance, eating them at him. As with anything that happens in that manner, though, I only harmed myself.

Withholding forgiveness and giving into certain temptations can bring about the same result. We get angry with a spouse, so we drink to get back at him, yet we harm ourselves. We get angry with a sister, so we stop talking to her to get back at her, yet we harm ourselves. We get upset about something at work, so we take it out on others in our job, yet we harm ourselves.

There is a quote I’ve heard repeated several times that says, “Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Well, not forgiving God is like eating six consecutive donuts and waiting for him to feel sick, get bloated, experience a sugar crash and not fit into his jeans.

It’s okay to get angry with God. What’s not okay is to cause harm to myself or others because I don’t like how life came at me on any particular day. What’s not okay is forsaking working toward being a healthier me because I’m upset about something. I am human; I will fall. But every time I recognize my fall, I have the opportunity to turn my face upward, reach out my hands and say, “Okay, that was dumb. Please help me get up and please show me how I can do this better next time.”

My prayer today is that as I find the strength to ask God to grant me grace in dealing with myself, that you also find that grace. May we find the grace to forgive God for not giving us life as we pictured it and may we find the grace to forgive ourselves for the negative ways we respond when life gets hard.

Amen! =D

Wandering Sheep

 “I have wandered away like a lost sheep; come and find me, for I have not forgotten your commands.”   (Psalm 119:176; NLT)

Hang around me a bit and you’ll surely hear me say something like, “Life can’t all happen on the mountaintop; growth happens in the valleys; if life was a plateau then it would be boring.” I’m a firm believer that I cannot know light without darkness just as I cannot know who I am unless I experience who I am not. By this belief, I must go through periods of time where I am not the person I want to be in order to know both who I want to be and who I AM.

Many people often refer to similar experience as desert times or being in the wilderness. It is time that I feel more distant from God, it is harder to hear him, and I feel a little lost. When I am in that place, it seems like no matter how much I think I should know the answers or what I should do to bring myself out of it, nothing works.

It’s beyond frustrating.

More often than not, though, what I find is that God patiently waits through my stubbornness for the moment of beautiful surrender when I throw my hands up and say, “God, I don’t have the answers, I don’t know what to do, I’m giving it to you. Please show me the way.”

I get self-confident when things go well. While self-confidence can be a good thing, it gets troublesome when I start to think I have the answers and attempt to take my life back under my own direction and management. What I need more than self-confidence is God-confidence.¹

A couple of years ago, a chance encounter with an out-of-town visitor led to conversation over coffee. The discussion primarily revolved around God even though she was not a believer. She met me with opposition at every turn until finally she voiced what bothered her most about our dialogue. With her voice agitated and slightly raised, she blurted out, “You can’t just totally let go and let God. The idea of total surrender is absurd. It can’t be done!” As I let her words settle in the air between us, a smile crept across my face as I calmly said, “Actually, it can. It was the best thing I ever did. It saved my life.”

Then things got good and even though I was thanking and praising God at every turn, I began to forget I needed to continue surrendering to him.

This is a cycle of my life. There is no better indicator that I’ve tried to take over than when things start to feel like they are getting out of control. If I find myself worrying, I’m probably not surrendering. I’ve wandered away. God is there, I know he’s there, but I’ve wandered over to the edge of the pasture, or perhaps just outside the gate, or, if I’m being really stubborn, well past the gate and off into the forest.

Knowing my mistake, I turn my face upward and admit what I’ve done. Then I ask for help. “I’ve wandered away. Please come find me.”

God wants me to completely rely on him. He wants me to trust him implicitly. Sometimes that means he’s going to let me make mistakes until I consciously recognize and admit what I’ve done and then earnestly seek his passionate love and care.

My prayer today is that I find where I’m trying to direct my life and then let it go. God’s got this.

Amen! =D

¹ “Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.” (1 Corinthians 10:12; MSG)

Not What, but Why?

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)

Tall orders stand before me this Lenten season. But as I step out in faith, I understand that both the sacrifices and the supplements I feel called toward this Lent focus on three key elements:

Obedience. Discipline. Relationship.

Obedience is following that which God set before me as a major dietary change. Lent is a great time to start a new nutrition regimen, however all the new restrictions require a fair amount of research and learning on my end. Had I paid attention when I first received the instruction in January, my research could be done and I could be prepared. But I am human, stubborn and willful, and I not only ignored God's word on the matter, I also openly rebelled against it. So Lent, as a penitential season, provides good opportunity to turn, ask for forgiveness, say yes, and ask for strength to carry out the instructions now.

Discipline is not only sticking to the dietary regimen, but also making the necessary changes in my schedule to make and keep a commitment to reviving Little Meditations during Lent. I admit I've not given God the best of one-on-one time lately. I talked a fair amount about it; I spoke to things I could do to change it, but again, I am stubborn and willful, busy in my little human life, stopping to thank God and say a prayer here and there, but not taking good time to sit with him in quiet or to spend more time than the pre-sleep routine in meditation on his word. Lent is a great time to add back the pause and reflection offered by writing Little Meditations. Discipline is required in order to fulfill this commitment.

Relationship. Stepping into obedience of something into which God called me and disciplining myself in a way which results in more quiet & reflective time in prayer and study both move me closer to God. Every time I say yes, every time I am still, I move closer to God. God so desperately wants us to have real, personal, individual relationships with him. God does so much for me daily. The least I can do is work on my end of that bargain. The least I can do is modify my behavior to say, "You are important and I want you in my life. I will say yes to you and I will make time to be still." The least I can do is pay God more than lip service when I say, "Your will, not mine, be done."

Ouch. That last sentence kind of stings. But this is Lent. And Lent is a season intended for self-reflection and spiritual cleansing as I prepare for the death and resurrection of the One who sets me free. Free from the bondage of self1, free from the petty tyrannies of others2, free from the confines of this world3.

As we begin this Lenten season together, my question for you is not "What are you doing for Lent," but "Why are you doing it?"

May God's glorious strength be with you through this time and may you find his light shining through your commitment to him.

Amen! =D




1-Matthew 10:39; John 10:10
2-Romans 14
3-John 18:36