Do you ever do ridiculous things to try and help you remember things?
I was running today and I ran past this tree on a drive way. In fact I ran past it three times because i decided to go back and get a photo of it but didn’t want to be obvious so i had to run a few meters past it, turn around and then run back past it to continue on my way. It’s not a great photo because as I said it was taken whilst running but it captures what I wanted it to. It seemed worth going back to get a photo because of the thought process that God used it to prompt in my.
The thought:
That tree is so small, it’s roots aren’t established, and so that tree needs help. It needs a tree bigger than it is to help keep it up and help it settle into the ground.
As I think about weight loss and the past 16 or so months of actually achieving a steady loss and as I think about Lysa TerKeurst’s Made to Crave I can totally see how God would use that image to poke me as I ran past it.
I can totally lose weight on my own. I can do it in my own strength and I can get to my targets AS LONG as nothing gets in my way. As long as I just keep going and keep my head down then why wouldn’t I manage it?
Problem is that I’m not managing it. My roots aren’t deep enough in the weigh loss journey to keep losing weight when things like special occasions or bad days come along and create wind to continue the tree metaphor.
I wobble and I get shoved around although i can maybe withstand it I can’t really achieve or grow and I end stagnant and STUCK!
What I need is the big stick that anchors me in place. What I need is God. I need His strength to sustain my willpower and decision making skills. I need His wisdom to help me make wise choices and eat the things which are beneficial despite everything being permissible. I need Him to help me see that there will be weeks when I can have made all the right choices but I won’t lose weight but that He is pleased with my discipline and pleased with me for making this walk with Him REGARDLESS of the scales and the tape measure.
There will hopefully come a day where my weight loss journey will become a weight maintaining journey and that it won’t be so much about the relationship with God because He will challenging me on the next thing and my roots will be deeper and more able to keep me stable but for now I need this stick to keep me upright!
I’m ignoring the thought process that the trees roots are going to wreck these peoples lovely drive way when it gets bigger and starts pushing them up! You can’t win them all! 😉