We shop and spend money on things we don’t need. We still eat the chocolate pie when we’re full from our dinner. We scroll through social media, checking our pages and counting our likes and comments. We indulge in our guilty pleasures, hide our secret sins, and lie in bed wondering if this is it. Is this it?
What is actually going on here?
I believe God made us to crave. Now before you think this is some sort of cruel joke by God, let me assure you that the object of our craving was never supposed to be food or the many other things people find themselves consumed by.
Think about the definition of the word craving. How would you define it? Dictionary.com defines craving as something you long for, want greatly, desire eagerly, and beg for. Now consider this expression of craving: “How lovely is your dwelling place, LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Psalm 84:1–2).
Yes, we were made to crave—long for, want greatly, desire eagerly, and beg for—God. Only God.
Sweet sister, does this resonate with you?
Have you chosen to pursue God, to follow Jesus? He created you to know Him, to be fulfilled more deeply by knowing Him than by any other experience or pleasure this world has to offer. When we admit our need for Him, when we humble ourselves and confess our sins and ask Him to be Lord of our lives, that’s where the journey begins. He saves us in that moment, and then we can begin the process of allowing Him to fulfill our cravings and make us eternally, completely, and wholly filled.
Is it easy?
No.
Is it worth it?
A thousand times yes.
Dear God, I am an imperfect person, a sinner, and I need You. Please forgive me for giving in to cravings that will never satisfy. I want to follow You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
35
PHYSICALLY OVERWEIGHT AND SPIRITUALLY UNDERWEIGHT
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
—JOHN 4:34
If you’ve attended many Christian women’s events, you’ve probably heard the story of the Samaritan woman told from just about every possible angle. If I hear someone start to speak about her at a conference, I’ll admit my brain begs me to tune out and daydream about tropical places or items I need to add to my grocery list.
It’s not that I don’t like her story. I do. It’s just that I’ve heard it so many times I find myself doubting there could possibly be anything fresh left to say about it. But in all my years of hearing about the Samaritan woman, reading her story, and feeling like I know it, I missed something. Something really big.
Right smack-dab in the middle of one of the longest recorded interactions Jesus has with a woman, He starts talking about food. Food! And I’d never picked up on it before. I somehow missed Jesus’ crucial teaching that our bodies must have two kinds of nourishment: physical and spiritual.
Just as I must have physical food for my body to survive, I need spiritual food for my soul to thrive. Jesus says, “My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). And then He goes on to say, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35).
In the midst of offering salvation to the Samaritan woman, Jesus seems to wander off on this tangent about food. But it’s not a tangent at all.
Actually, it fits perfectly. It relates directly to the core issue of spiritual malnutrition. Specifically, it’s about trying to use food to fill not only the physical void of our stomachs but also the spiritual void of our souls. For years, I was physically overweight but spiritually underweight.
Jesus wants us to know only He can fill us and truly satisfy us.
As I mentioned before, I realize food may not be your area of struggle. But I believe we all have things in our lives that we are tempted to turn to instead of Jesus to fill the aching places in our souls. How crucial it is for us to remember:
Food can fill our stomachs but never our souls.
Possessions can fill our houses but never our hearts.
Children can fill our days but never our identities.
Jesus wants us to know only He can fill us and truly satisfy us. He really wants us to believe that with all of our hearts.
Only by being filled with authentic soul food from Jesus—following Him and telling others about Him—will our souls ever be truly satisfied. And breaking free from whatever consumes our thoughts more than Jesus allows us to see and pursue our callings with more confidence and clarity.
Dear Lord, I know that it is true that only You can fill me. I acknowledge that You are the Lord of my life. I want to please You today in all that I do. Help me follow You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
36
AN UNDIVIDED HEART
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
—PSALM 73:26
I knew my weight issue didn’t have anything to do with me being spiritual or worldly. If I was honest with myself, my issue was plain and simple—a lack of self-control. I could sugarcoat it and justify it all day long, but the truth was I didn’t have a weight problem; I had a spiritual problem. I depended on food for comfort more than I depended on God. And I was simply too lazy to make time to exercise.
Ouch. That truth hurt.
So, one day a couple of years ago, I got up first thing in the morning and went running. And you know what? I hated it. Exercise just made me want to cry.
It made me hot and sticky. It made my legs hurt and my lungs burn. Nothing about it was fun until after I finished. But the feeling of accomplishment I felt afterward was fantastic! So each day I would fight through the tears and excuses and make the effort to run.
At first I could only slowly jog from one mailbox to another—in a neighborhood where the houses are close together, thank you very much. Slowly, I started to see little evidences of progress. Every day I asked God to give me the strength to stick with it this time. I’d tried so many other times and failed. The more I made running about spiritual growth and discipline, the less I focused on the weight. Each lost pound was not a quest to get skinny but evidence of obedience to God.
One day, I went out for my run and a clear command from God rumbled in my heart: “Run until you can’t take another step. Do it not in your strength but in Mine. Every time you want to stop, pray—and don’t stop until I tell you to.”
I had a record up to that point of running three miles, which I thought was quite stellar. So maybe God wanted me to run just slightly past the three-mile marker and rejoice in relying on His strength to do so. But as I reached that point in my run, my heart betrayed my aching body and said, “Keep going.”
Each step thereafter, I had to pray and rely on God. The more I focused on running toward God, the less I thought about my desire to stop. And this verse from the Psalms came to life: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (73:26).
As I ran that day, I connected with God on a different level. I experienced what it meant to absolutely require God’s faith to see something through. How many times have I claimed to be a woman of faith but rarely lived a life requiring faith? That day, God didn’t have me stop until I ran 8.6 miles.
Hear me out here. It was my legs that took every step. It was my energy being used. It was my effort that took me from one mile to three to five to seven to 8.6. But it was God’s strength replacing my excuses step by step by step.
How many times have I claimed to be a woman of faith but rarely lived a life requiring faith?
For a mailbox-to-mailbox, crying-when-she-thought-of-exercising, allergic-to-physical-discipline kind of girl, it was a modern-day miracle. I broke through the “I can’t” barrier and expanded the horizons of my reality. Was it hard? Yes. Was it tempting to quit? Absolutely. Could I do this in my own strength? Never. But this really wasn’t about running. It was
about realizing the power of God taking over my complete weakness.
I went back to my standard three-mile track the next time I ran. But slowly I increased my daily runs to four miles and am very happy with that distance. Running 8.6 miles on a daily basis isn’t realistic for me. But that one day, it was glorious. Especially because of what I discovered when I got home.
Since I’d been thinking of a verse from Psalms during my run, I grabbed my Bible as soon as I got home and opened it up to Psalm 86, in honor of my 8.6 miles.
Here is part of what I read: “Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever” (Psalm 86:11–12).
An undivided heart. That’s what my whole journey in conquering my cravings was about. When it comes to my body, I can’t live with divided loyalties. I can either be loyal to honoring the Lord with my body or loyal to my cravings, desires, and many excuses for not exercising.
I don’t know where you might have divided loyalties or what struggle makes you think, I can’t. But are you open to God’s leading in how He wants to show His power in your life?
Dear Lord, I want to have a heart that is totally loyal to You. Please show me if there are things I turn to instead of You. Teach me to rely on Your strength and power in the areas where I am weak. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
37
SHOCKED BY MY OWN ADVICE
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
—MATTHEW 7:13–14
Today’s key verses are not easy for a girl who wanted nothing more growing up than to fit in. Don’t cause waves. Don’t stand out. Don’t stand up. Don’t rock the boat of norm in any way. Just go with the flow in the same direction as everyone else.
But somewhere along my Christian journey, going with the flow started to bother me.
Verses like the one above in Matthew 7 and Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” started to mess with my status-quo existence.
Conformed or transformed? The choice is mine. If I want to be a sold-out somebody for God, I have to break away from the everybody crowd.
This is a message I shared with my son several years ago when he came to me scared. He admitted things had gone a little too far with his girlfriend and wanted help processing what to do. They hadn’t crossed every line but enough that he knew they were headed in a dangerous direction.
We sat on the back deck and processed the situation together. We read a list of empowering Scripture verses seeking to filter every part of this situation through God’s truth. In the end, he and his girlfriend came to the realization they needed to break up. It’s really hard to put things in reverse after certain lines have been crossed.
I walked back into the house after that conversation with two things running through my brain. I was thrilled my son came to me to talk about such a sensitive issue. What an honor to breathe Truth into his physical struggle.
Conformed or transformed? The choice is mine. If I want to be a sold-out somebody for God, I have to break away from the everybody crowd.
But I was also feeling a little panicked at the realities of parenting older teenagers. And that feeling led me straight to the pantry, convinced I needed some chocolate. I deserved some chips! As I loaded my arms full of treats, I was suddenly struck by a gut-wrenching question. How could I expect my son to apply Truth to his area of physical struggle but refuse to apply it to my area of physical struggle with food?
Ouch. I was shocked by my own advice.
If I wanted to model what it looks like to live out truth in my physical struggles, I would have to break up with unhealthy choices. God made me to consume food, but food was never supposed to consume me.
Making healthy choices with my food would have to be part of my breaking away. I would have to distance myself from my distraction if I wanted to become truly transformed.
What’s your distraction? What’s the one way you can start to break away from the everybody crowd?
The everybody crowd says, “If it feels good it is good.” The everybody crowd says, “Don’t deny yourself . . . that’s so old-school.” The everybody crowd says, “Everybody’s living it up—so should you.” Conformed or transformed? The choice is ours. If we want to be sold-out for God, we have to break away from the everybody crowd.
Dear Lord, I want and need to live apart from the everybody crowd. Free me of my distractions. Remove my insecurities. Help me to follow You with my whole heart. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
38
THE VALUE OF EMPTINESS
He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
—2 CORINTHIANS 12:9
I once had a fascinating discussion about discipline with three pastors. The question was thrown out, “Is discipline really sustainable?” One chuckled as he stuffed a second yeast roll in his mouth and said, “Obviously, not for me.”
The second leaned back in his chair and expressed his doubt as well.
The third piped in with an absolute yes and gave biblical support for his emphatic answer.
I never got to give my answer that day. We had a tight schedule and our conversation turned to other matters. But if I had been able to give my answer, it would have been this: no and yes.
No, I do not believe in our own strength we can sustain a level of discipline that requires real sacrifice for a long period of time.
However, my answer is yes when you factor in a crucial spiritual truth. Making the connection between my daily disciplines and my desire to pursue holiness is crucial. Holiness doesn’t just deal with my spiritual life; it deals with every single part of my life. My body. My mind. My relationships. My time.
The more dependent we become on God’s strength, the less enamored we will be with other choices.
It is good for God’s people to be put in a place of longing so they feel a slight desperation. Only then can we be empty enough and open enough to discover the holiness we were made for. When we are stuffed full of other things and never allow ourselves to be in a place of longing, we don’t recognize the deeper spiritual battle going on.
Satan wants to keep us distracted by making us chase one temporary filling after another. God wants us to step back and let the emptying process have its way until we start desiring a holier approach to life. The gap between our frail discipline and God’s available strength is bridged with nothing but a simple choice on our part to pursue this holiness.
Moment by moment we have the choice to live in our own strength and risk failure or to reach across the gap and grab hold of God’s unwavering strength. He promises us in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that His grace will be sufficient for us—even in our areas of greatest weakness. And the beautiful thing is, the more dependent we become on God’s strength, the less enamored we will be with other choices.
Dear Lord, I am weak. Please help me pause and feel the emptiness and longing deep within. I want to live by Your holiness and strength. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
39
SATAN’S PLAN AGAINST YOU
Everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
—1 JOHN 2:16
Something I pray on a regular basis is that God will give me a keen awareness of the Enemy’s plans and schemes against me. I want to be able to recognize his traps and avoid them.
I believe part of His answer came one day as I studied the story of Satan tempting Eve in Genesis 3 and our key verse: “Everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pr
ide of life—comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16).
As I compared these passages, I had a serious epiphany about how Satan goes after us. These verses outline Satan’s three-pronged plan of attack on our hearts. And it’s the same plan we see him using while tempting Jesus in the desert in Matthew 4:1–11! A fact that tells me while the Enemy may be powerful, he’s also predictable.
Let’s take a closer look at Satan’s plan as revealed in Eve’s story and Jesus’ story:
1. Make them crave some sort of physical gratification to the point they become preoccupied with it, be it sex, drugs, alcohol, or food. Satan tempted Eve with fruit, which “was good for food” (Genesis 3:6).
Satan tempted Jesus while the Lord was on a fast with bread.
Satan’s power over us is nothing compared to the freeing promises of God.
Satan tempts us with whatever physical stimulation we are too preoccupied by—be it taste, smell, sound, touch, or sight. These things are good within the boundaries where God meant for them to be enjoyed. But venture outside God’s intention for them, and they become an attempt to try and get our needs met outside the will of God.
2. Make them want to acquire things to the point they bow down to the god of materialism. Keep them distracted by making their eyes lust after the shiny things of the world. Satan tempted Eve by drawing her attention to what was “pleasing to the eye” (Genesis 3:6).
Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world and told Him that He could have it all.
Satan flashes the newer, bigger, and seemingly better things of this world in front of us, trying to lure us into thinking we must have it. This will make me fulfilled. This will make me happy. And then it wears out, breaks down, gets old, and reveals just how temporary every material thing is.
3. Make them boastful about what they have or do. Keep them distracted and obsessed with their status and significance. Choke the life out of them using the tentacles of their own pride. Satan tempted Eve by promising an increased awareness that would make her become more like God.
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