Day 12

John 6:26-27 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

Today I'm writing about temptation. We all have things in life that tempt us. Maybe it's taking too much time to read a book when we have other things that need our attention. Maybe it's watching TV, or getting on facebook, or overeating, or too much exercise, or not being active at all. 

Most of the things in life that tempt us are not bad in and of themselves. It all goes back to doing them in excess. To the point that they become the priority in our lives. They become what we are thinking about or  what consumes us. 

It starts out suttle. Right now, I'm struggling with are becoming physically healthy. I have diabetes. I am recently diagnosed and I'm trying to stay off medicines. My doctor gave me 90 days to get retested and show him if I can manage through diet to become "well enough" that I don't need medicine. In about a week I find out how well I'm doing.  To be honest, I did really well the first 30 days. Not great the next 30. I'm working on improving now. But I keep letting little things get in the way. Prime examples. I started drinking soda at home again. I'm finally out of it and I'm hoping to remain strong enough to not bring it back into the house. Drinking it when I go out to eat is fine. But I consume way to much when I have it in the house. Desserts. I shouldn't let myself induldge. It just opens a window to more and more sweets and things that are bad for me. But I did and now I'm working on removing sweets again. Candy. I had leftover candy from Chandler's Easter gift. So I ate some. I did manage to limit myself, but today I know how I'm feeling and if I don't go ahead and remove the candy from my possession then I'll have it gone way too fast. 

In the scripture above Jesus isn't really talking about "temptation" as much as our priorities being off. But isn't that what temptation is? As the scripture states: "don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you." 

The first part of my "become healthier" journey I was much more focused on praying and asking God to help me because I knew I couldn't do it on my own. After a while, I became less focused on God's help and more focused on me and what I could do. When I pray and ask God to help me to not be hungry or desire something. He does. But when I go into with my own strength, sometimes I can resist, but it takes energy and time and work and sometimes I don't resist at all, I just give in because it's easier.  I'm doing it in my own strength, which obviously is weak, or I wouldn't be where I am with my health at this point in my life. 

So, if I know prayer works and with God I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Why do I continue to allow myself to be weak? It's day 12 of my one year commitment to God. I am hopeful that I won't have to be repeating the same lesson all year. But I'm trusting that regardless of where my journey takes me, that as long as I let Him, God will be there with me on this journey.  

Today, here's my prayer: "God I pray that you'll not only help me to keep you the focus of my desires. To know you more, to grow in you but I pray for anyone out there that might be reading this blog.  I ask that it will be a gentle reminder that they need you in their life to be strong.  Maybe it's not food/health issues for them, maybe it's what they read or how they spend their time, their priorities, or something work related.  You know what we struggle with.  You know us.  So I pray that you'll encourage any one reading this that each day we can make a choice to put you first or not and I ask that you give us all the strength to do just that.  Put you first in our lives.  Thank you.