“Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5

Verse Reflections:  I am a strong person.  Physically, emotionally, professionally I am one of the strongest on each team.  So, why haven’t I been using this strength to love the Lord?  Why haven’t I been using this strength to “just say no?”  I can say no if I put the love of the Lord before my love of self, my love of food.  I have allowed myself to be weak, to become weaker and weaker when it comes to eating the wrong foods.  I have made myself immune to the signals from leptin telling my body that I am full.  Now, finally, I have a full button.  Seriously, I thought mine was broken and it was.  I broke it.  I broke it because I kept shoving sugar into my body and the insulin was blocking the production of leptin.  Today I am going to love the Lord with all my heart, my soul, my strength and my eating habits.  I am going to love the Lord with all my heart, my soul, my strength and my choices of foods.  I am going to love the Lord with all my heart, my soul, my strength and my choice of when to stop eating.  I am strong.  When I love the Lord with all my heart I become stronger.  He has all the power in the universe at His fingertips.  Crazy!  We can do this.  Use all your strength today to eat God foods.  This verse is preceded by instructions to obey the commandments “so that you may enjoy a long life” (6:2).  Boom!  God wants the best for us.  When we do not elevate food as a god (love no other gods before me), when we do not make food an idol (shall not make for yourself an idol).  For decades I have chastised myself for not being able to rise above my cravings, my compulsive eating, my surges of obsession.  These cravings existed until I calmed the beast with a specific food that would not leave me alone.  My body would be going about its’ day and all of a sudden, I would conjure up a specific food that I had to have.  This food became my god, my obsession, until I indulged.  I would feel a rise of excitement, a surge of happiness as I ate.  I truly savored every bite and it was worth every calorie.  Every morsel seemed to calm my body, calm my obsession.  I would, many nights, go home and cook the food of my dreams just to have it.  Unfortunately, I am an awesome cook so if I wanted brownies, a brownie at a restaurant or the store was not as good as mine (Bobby Flay come on down lol).  Of course, that meant I had an entire pan to consume instead of one small opportunity to contend with.

He wants us to live long lives.  When we eat foods that wear our pancreas out by producing too much insulin all day, we are shortening our lives.  When we put 40 pounds of pressure on our joints for every 10 pounds we are overweight, we are shortening our lives and the quality of life.  When we do not put the nutrition and vitamins in our body that it craves and needs to grow healthy cells, we are shortening our lives.  Today we are going to grow our strength by loving God with all our strength.  Today we are going to cease letting food be an idol or a god.  We are going to eat God foods, and make God the reason we choose what we eat.

Prayer:  Father, today I am going to use my strength, the strength You blessed me with to love You.  I know that putting You first is all I need to do.  It is all the difference I need to be successful in eating healthy foods.  I am flabbergasted at how easy it is to make the changes I need to make when I put You first and not myself.  I had the first person notice that I lost weight today (6 months later).  That made me excited and made me want to raise my hands in honor to You.  I know that is not my first priority but it is an exciting part of living and being healthy.  I have gotten rid of 60 pounds of pressure on my joints thanks to Your power.  I want to enjoy a long life.  I want to live a healthy life.  I know that I can avoid so many medical issues if I just love You with all my heart, soul and strength.  Loving You is creating a healthier me and Your power is changing my life.  You are changing my heart, my soul and my strength.  I now have the strength to say “no thank you.”  I now have the strength to reach for the healthy foods.  I now have the strength to plan a healthy meal before I leave in the morning so I don’t junk out.  Thank You Father for this change.  Please keep me rocking this.  I take zero credit because I failed too many times.  I am actually enjoying playing with the spices to make sure everything tastes delicious.  I love You Father with all my heart, soul and strength.  Help me today, choose Your foods.