When I first started in The Seeker’s Method, I started because I wanted to lose weight. What I didn’t know then was that God was taking me on a journey of my awakening, where I had to first gain strength in the spirit before I could lose weight in my body. What I didn’t know THEN was that once I stopped allowing my body to master me, I could become strong enough in my spirit so to take control of my soul and thus, master and change my body.
In this episode, I’m going to share tips about the weight loss journey that could change your life. These are the things that I didn’t know BACK THEN that I hope somehow might encourage you in the depths of your soul. When I started my weight loss journey, I didn’t know everything that I know now, spiritually & even physically. I didn’t have somebody whispering these Biblical truths to my heart and helping me to find God and His strength to stay on the narrow path. I want that for you! This episode is for the woman who feels defeated by her inability to lose the weight. It’s for the woman who feels as though she takes five steps forward and 10 steps back perpetually. If that is you, I need you to listen, closely. The journey that you are embarking on as a Seeker’s is not a diet. But that does not mean it defies physical weight-loss principles. It does mean that you must start this journey being led in your spirit, seeing with your eyes of faith, working on God‘s timeline, and surrendering your human weight loss expectations. It means crucifying your thoughts daily as you begin to pull God closer. This weight loss journey that you are embarking upon will take anywhere from 2-5 years. Of course, all of that depends on how well you pay attention, learn, and respond.
If you don’t like the sound of that, then I encourage you to pray before you look for another weight loss program that will likely take you the same amount of time to lose the weight and then prepare you to keep it off. Being a seeker isn’t a weight loss program. It is a life gain program where weight loss is just a byproduct. In the weeks and months ahead of you, as a Seeker, God is going to prepare and strengthen you for the battle that he is sending you into. He’s going to prepare you against temptation, help you to identify your sin, and to begin to truly arm against it, in SPIRITUAL & PHYSICAL PLACES. He’s going to help you change your fuel source from yourself as a human, to your spirit who has HIS divine nature leading the way.
Expect the journey to be hard because he is helping you to undo the patterns of this world. This will require durations of time where you WILL NOT see a physical change. But that’s OK. Immediate results are an empty promise of the world from the dieting industry. Did the Israelites wake up in The Promised Land after 30 days of difficulty? No.
God needs to renew your mind and strengthen you in your spirit. This means SUBSTANTIAL prep work must be done before results will ever be physically seen.
Preparation is progress; it is not completion.
Why is this journey so long? It’s so long because most of us don’t necessarily have a weight-loss problem as much as we have an obedience problem and difficulty trusting God. Believing that God will help us lose weight. Many Christians feel like asking God to help them lose weight is selfish and vain. But that’s only the case if you’re looking at it from a worldly perspective. Weight loss can only happen when your health is restored. And for many of us, when we focus on weight loss, we can’t make progress because we’re using our infected sin-nature soul/body to get us unstuck. The problem is that we can’t undo the problem that way because most of us don’t see our sin nature as being the problem. We’ve separated our food from our spiritual life and don’t see how our Spirit is the very thing that can lead us out of the bondage of our food worship. So it is vain to ask God to help you lose weight and to be beautiful for the World. But, asking God to help you be free from worshiping the idols in your life, to be free from your bondage of flavor, easy, comfort and fullness of flesh is not vain. Asking Him to help restore your health is not vain. Asking Him to help you LEARN to be led by the Spirit so you are no longer mastered by your flesh is not vain. Asking for Him to help you release pride and show YOU how to restore health in order to heal your body is not vain.
Seeking a diet, responding and living in accordance to the number on the scale, perpetually seeking the approval of the world…THAT is vain.
Some of us are stuck focusing on the things of this world instead of the things that we should be focused on. God will use this journey to help strengthen you and show you where your focus should be. The reason this journey takes so long is because there’s so much to undo. Can you see it now?
From my experience alone I can tell you that you will need 3-6 Months just for God to show you the patterns of deception in your life regarding food and your habits. And another 3 to 6 months to overcome trusting what you think and feel before you just obediently trust God’s voice over your own thoughts. And then, another 6 to 9 months to be made stronger against temptation as you learn to walk in God’s truth and respond to the Holy Spirits leadership. And then another 6 months to a year to yield to The Spirits leadership as you pursue spiritual nourishment over your perpetual desire to nourish your body with food alone. As God strengthens you, you will notice that you are becoming physically unrecognizable, and it will ONLY be a byproduct of you finally YIELDING to the Spirits lead in your life. It won’t happen overnight. And it won’t happen perfectly without incident. God will teach you radical OBEDIENCE to his voice and you will see how this strengthens your life and results in weight loss. But you must prepare your mind right now for this journey to be long. Do not worry! Be strong and courageous! Not in your desire to obey a diet, but to seek God, trust his voice, crave his presence, and step into the fullness of his grace.
I want to show you how God did this before and why you should put your hope in him that he can and will do it again, even for you, even in weight loss.
In the book of Joshua, we see God leading Joshua to battle. We see him encouraging Joshua. We see him promising Joshua the results of facing his fears and doing hard things. In Joshua 8 we see God telling Joshua to not be afraid and giving him a promise of victory. But! The victory is a result of Joshua’s obedience to God‘s commands and doing the work promptly as God instructs him.
As you read Joshua you see that God has Joshua doing more than just claiming the Promised Land; he has him in a battle to rid the land of sin. God knew that once his chosen people, (and you are a chosen people) occupy the promised land, they needed the strength to stay in the promised land. And that meant God’s presence would be needed in the Promised Land. Which also meant that sin could not exist. And so, what we learn from Joshua is that he had to do HIS PART as he walked out God’s will, on the narrow obedient path, as he did the work necessary toward His Promised Land. Just like WE have physical things to do, Joshua had to physically respond and lead an army. He had to do it with ruthless obedience. He had to respond obediently & immediately to what God was telling him to do. And the more Joshua obeyed, the more he naturally was kept from sin.
In the natural, during many of the battles, Joshua faced armies that were much greater than his own. There were many occasions where he & the Israelites appeared outnumbered.
Despite how great the adversity appeared; The Israelites were successful because they honored God with their obedience.
Despite the odds, God led them to victory commensurate to their obedience.
Obedience is one Aspect of life that we can control. We can’t always control understanding because we may not always have all the facts. And sometimes during life, we can’t control every environment we find ourselves in, we can’t control other people or every situation. However, we can control our choice to obey God! Whatever new challenges we may face, the Bible contains relevant instructions that we can choose to ignore or choose to follow. But we must understand that we have a choice. Obey God. Or obey what we see, think, or feel.
I wonder how Joshua might have felt had God told him at the beginning that the conquest of Canaan would take 7 years? Would that have slowed him down, or propelled him forward?
We often expect quick changes in our lives and quick victory over sin. Our journey with God is a lifelong process and the changes and victories take time. It’s easy to grow impatient with God and feel like giving up hope because things are moving too slowly. When we are close to a situation it’s often too difficult to see our own progress. But when you look back, you can see that God never stopped working. God just needs you to also never stop working. To keep trusting, looking forward and obeying. To know that the scale can’t measure internal physical healing and spiritual strength. God’s ways and his timing are immeasurable and require only the faith of a mustard seed. See yourself as ridding your life of sin, like Joshua. Be strong and courageous in your diligence to trust this process. Be ruthless in your response to God and obediently do what God shows you. Obedience will keep you from sinning. Do you feel like this journey is hard, uphill, and fraught with sacrifice, & that you are not outnumbered? REMEMBER! It’s not you against the number on the scale. This is a faith building walk where God’s grace is in abundance and available to you through your obedient, believing heart, but here is where Joshua May not have had what you have now. And that is awareness. Awareness that this will be a long journey. That you will win, and you will lose some of the battles. That this will require effort, hard work and uncomfortable experiences.
Do not be afraid; God is in the work. He’s there, strengthening you for each battle, preparing to give you your promised land of restored health and lost weight. Keep Him near with your obedience. Keep Him near as you understand what sin in your life is, and then ridding your life of it. The Israelites only lost battles when they disobeyed. Know what you should do, seek his strength & guidance, and do it every hour, day, week, month. Until you arrive. This is the episode I never Head but that would have blessed me on my journey. The wisdom to know that it was likely going to take me a couple of years to lose the weight could have prepared me differently. Had I known then that it was likely going to take me a while, even 3 years, very likely would have encouraged me. Especially if I’d known then that my weight loss journey was how God was preparing me for eternity...even in weight loss.