Focus

I’ve been a bit slack with getting round to writing blog posts. My head has written many and I’ve half written a few but this is the first time in a while I’ve been able to sit and write. Even then this is the second time I’ve started this particular post. But it seems important so I shall try to carry on.

I’ve noticed a couple of times that God uses the time I’m changing Sully’s nappy to speak to me. When I’m changing Sully’s nappy he has this habit of trying to pull the cables that are up by his head. If he were to manage it he would pull his baby monitor or his light down onto his head. He should ask his brother because Zac did it once; missed him but there’s still a dint in the wall to show for it!

Anyway I digress a little. Sully often spends his time on the mat staring at the cables and his hand twitches towards them. If I can distract him away from the cable his hand doesn’t twitch and he forgets all about them.

Bear with me here!

What I felt God saying to me was that it’s where your eyes focus that you see. Obvious huh? But where you are looking makes a difference to what you are tempted by. Your eyes are what your brain is focused on. When I spend my time focused on something I want and can’t have I make myself want it more. When I turn my eyes from that things I want it less.

If I spend my days focused on the wrong things there’s a high chance I’ll make the wrong choices.
Food is a battle
For me food is a battle. For as long as I can remember I’ve tried to lose weight but willpower has lost out to temptation of eating ‘fun’ things, more appealing things, having less restrictions on my life, choosing the free path. Problem is that eating what you want isn’t the free path when you need to lose weight. It’s just you being trapped by the food that tempts you. I’ve created a mindset in me that somethings are banned and that then leads to me wanting the banned food. To be fair that probably comes from years of following different dieting plans! But actually I am finding freedom in the idea that everything is permissible, all the foods are like (or rather appeal more!) are permissible BUT not everything is beneficial.

The bible says that very thing in 1 Corinthians 6:12 “”Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.” I cannot eat whatever I want whenever I want because it is not beneficial to me. By using calorie counting instead of weight watchers or Slimming World I can see the science of calorie in and calorie out. If I’ve eaten all my calories today eating on more chocolate bar, even if it’s smaller, will not allow me to lose weight – it’s not beneficial. However if I want that chocolate bar and am willing to go for a 30 minute walk to gain it then that’s a different ball game. My head is full of thoughts about kids and food at this point but I will write that somewhere else and link it when i do! (See that post here)

More than that…
It goes further what I eat though. Focus comes all the way down to the wanting to lose weight in the first place. When I am so wrapped up in the scales and the calories I fail and falter when I don’t achieve my calorie goal that day or I don’t lose the weight I want to. If my focus is on God and the journey that losing weight takes me on with him; a journey of discipline, obedience, refinement and transformation IN HIM, then when the scales don’t do what I want them to do or I eat too many calories that one day then I can’t define myself as a failure. When we define ourselves as failures we are more inclined to give up. When we see ourselves as on a journey we are more inclined to keep pushing on and see where God can take us in this journey.

Don’t get me wrong I still desperately want the scales to go down. The weight loss part of my journey still seems so long but it’s easier to pull myself back and remind myself this is a journey that it has ever been before.

I can’t recommend enough the book Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. She speaks more eloquently than I ever will about the journey that weight loss can take you on with God.