“But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” John 19:33-34 (NIV)
Last time we talked, I shared with you how God used my pastor to explain to me the differences between being saved, freed, and healed. He gave easy to understand illustrations about how God has specific directions for us to embrace each aspect of life. We are saved (accepting Jesus into our heart), freed from our past (water baptism), can choose to invite Jesus’ Helper to live life with us (anointing of the Holy Spirit), and healed (emotionally, physically, etc.) through eating the bread of communion which symbolizes Christ’s body.
During this same time period, we also had two guest speakers come to our church, one before Pastor James’ sermon described above, and one after, who both also spoke about different elements of healing. I had the advantage of hearing from three different pastors’ sermons and their wisdom regarding this topic. During the first pastor’s sermon, I asked God to heal me of food addiction, something I have struggled with throughout my entire life. That pastor encouraged us to live as though we have been healed, waiting for the full manifestation of healing to take place. That’s just a fancy way of saying the symptoms of the illness, addiction, etc. disappear. So, in my case, I chose to believe that God had healed me of my food addiction and while I still struggled and the excess weight I was carrying didn’t miraculously fall off my body overnight, I walked in the freedom that I had been healed.
In the past, when I had prayed to God about freedom from food addiction, I thought that meant I was miraculously transformed into a skinny person with a skinny person’s metabolism. Therefore, I would be able to eat anything I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I would stay skinny. There are so many false truths associated with that. Most of the time, “skinny” people are skinny because they don’t eat all the time. They listen to their body. They eat when they feel physical hunger, enough to make them satisfied, not Thanksgiving Day full, and don’t eat (usually not even thinking about food) until their body is again on empty and it needs to be filled up. My messed up thinking was that while I was still thinking like a person with a food addiction (thinking about food constantly), I figured freedom meant acting on those impulses, eating whenever I “thought” I needed food (i.e. whenever I thought about food) and that would be walking in freedom.
This time, though, I noticed a real difference. Food didn’t have the same appeal to me it once did. If I didn’t like something, instead of eating it anyway, there were more times that I pushed it away, threw it away, or gave it away. While I still struggled with eating too much at one sitting, I wasn’t eating all day long and actually waiting for true hunger pains more than not. It wasn’t a coincidence that a friend of mine was starting a Bible study dealing with breaking free from the stronghold of food. I didn’t want to do the Bible study itself, but I did ask her if I could join her with accountability regarding the eating plan. Throughout the months, I have realized the discipline of the eating plan has helped me relearn how to listen to my body, which is what God intends all along for all His children.
Come back next time and I will continue how God used a series of “classroom instructions” to teach me more about His love for His children.
© Cheri Swalwell 2015