God Doesn’t Care if I’m Fat

Some months ago, I began this journey that I call “breaking up with food.” I blogged for over 40 days straight, and then I stopped. It’s not that I’ve stopped the journey; I guess I got frustrated with myself that I wasn’t already fixed after 40 days and just didn’t want to talk about it anymore! I mean, who wants to talk about their failures publicly online?

Plus, I’m “learning to walk in freedom” lady. I’m supposed to have all things figured out right now today for all eternity. Yes, I realize how ridiculous that mentality is even before I “say it out loud,” so to speak. But that’s how I treat myself a lot of the time.

I remember sharing at a conference shortly after my book was published. A friend later quoted me, laughing, because I said I never felt less free than while I was writing this book on my journey of learning to walk in freedom. He felt the same way when he was writing his own book on a different topic.

I think there’s two reasons for that: the first one is Satan. When you step out in faith and write a book or blog post or song or sermon, the enemy of our souls will try and tell us we are not walking the walk; we’re just talking to talk. And nobody wants to be a hypocrite. The devil will start putting his finger on things in our life that “prove” this.

But there’s another reason. And that’s God. God wants to know that we are going to trust Him and that He called us to write that book or blog post or song or sermon even if our feelings and/or the enemy of our souls try and tell us a different story.

Why did I say all that? Because a week and a half ago, while staying in a hotel, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror before I got in the shower. Now you’re wondering where I’m going with this, but I promise. I will keep my description rated G. And I had this thought popped into my head: God doesn’t care if you’re fat.

God doesn’t care if I’m fat. I care a lot – actually way way way too much. Well, there’s a couple of problems with this. I basically think I’m fat no matter what I actually weigh. And yes, right now I am about 20 pounds overweight according to flawed science of BMI. But, when I weighed 40-45 pounds less than this, I still thought I needed to lose weight. And I definitely did not.

As I drove to pick up my breakfast after completing my shower and getting dressed, I said to the Lord, “What do You mean, God? What do You mean that You don’t care if I’m fat?”

And He replied, again, in that still small voice: “I don’t care if you’re fat. I care if you’re obedient.”

Hmm. I think weight loss should be a direct result of my obedience as it pertains to food. But what if it’s not? God is saying that the most important thing is that I obeyed.

Will I obey him even if I never see a change on the scale? Honestly, obedience in the area of food for me is very difficult, and so I want to tell God, “No, I won’t obey no matter what because I deserve a reward for my hard work!” But again, I realize how ridiculous that is, and so today, I say “Yes.”

Yes, Lord, I will obey You in the area of food, even if I always see myself as fat. Even if the scale doesn’t budge. In fact, I took my batteries out of my scale at home because this journey of breaking up with food is also about breaking up with the number on the scale. I will still weigh in periodically outside of my home, but obedience is better than sacrifice, or in this case, weight loss. And as I said in the song I wrote a couple of months ago: I’ll get up today. I will choose to obey because there’s no other way. There’s no other way.

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