How someone loses weight with their mind!

Good Afternoon!

Today I am working my way back into "real life." Mark is back to work and I drove again after 3 weeks of not driving or getting out! I'm amazed once again at all the people that help and support and take care of my family when I can't do my usual routine.

I had a nice long conversation with my dear friend, Lisa, who is living with her family in Spain for 6 months. God has taken her in a different direction than what she had intended but she can still see God's hand in all that she is doing and the things she didn't anticipate.

I, too, have seen that my life is not going the way I had thought it would go and that my plans are not wrong necessarily, but that the more that I pay close attention to what God does through the shifting of my path, the more I trust Him and just know that His ways are not my ways.....and it makes it easier to trust again in all the unknowns.

In our Bible Study of Armor of God, we are going into the last week called the Helmet of Salvation. I am so amazed at just how much I understand what that means now. When we think of salvation, we often think of the saving from eternal death and the promise of heaven. As Priscilla Shirer talks about in her video, it is also the saving for health and good living! Why did Paul use the image of a helmet? The helmet protects our minds, our brains, our thoughts. When we are choosing to think the way God thinks about us--as righteous and beautiful in His sight--our minds are renewed and healthy! We are able to make decisions out of our right way of thinking. All this victorious living comes from our minds being right!

I was totally blown away that when Priscilla continued to talk, she mentioned Dr Leaf, the neuroscientist that has written books that I've read through and totally loved. When we don't put on the helmet of salvation, which is the renewing of our minds, we are easily tempted to believe the lies of the enemy and be swayed by the world. By continually using God's Word to renew our minds, we not only have salvation for heaven, we have salvation for a great way of living each day!

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

One of my dear friends sent me a text last week. She'd been trying for some years to lose weight. She has spent time in learning to trust God and learning more about what He says. She started cleaning up her eating and over time has lost quite a bit of weight. She ran into someone who noticed and asked her about it. When she explained what she'd done, the person said "well, now the hard part is keeping it off!"

Here's the thing that she recognized.....although at the moment she was a bit put off that someone would be so negative about it like that, she also could see that it wasn't going to be hard to keep it off because she had changed her way of thinking--her mind! She wasn't following a diet that no one can do forever, she had changed the way she was thinking!

Yes, it is a process and none of us ever get to say "I've arrived" and then not have to put in any more work! The marvelous thing is....she gets it! I find that there aren't a lot of people willing to do the hard work of changing their thinking....but in the long run, it will be the thing that lasts and it will always trump any diet plan anyone could ever devise! Because of people like her, I am inspired to continue to talk about loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, MINDS, souls and strength. I simply don't know how to separate out our health without addressing the epicenter of all choices--our minds!

Praise God that He has the power to change us! We don't have to be in control of that. We can lay it all down before Him and let Him work it out in us!

I pray that you would be empowered this week to take those steps toward renewing your mind day by day, too!

Love

jennie