Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Wow! Such a powerful verse this morning! Such an awesome “gift” to start my day!
I can be transformed. I can transform my thinking. I can transform my life. I can transform my body. I can transform my health.
All by the renewing of my mind. By changing my thought processes. By changing how I react to things.
I don’t have to listen to what the world is telling me. It’s up to me! And in doing so I will be bringing honor and glory to God. I will be proving and living the will of God. What better testimony could I want?
I think too often we try to “tell” the world about God while we don’t “show” the world through our own lives. I know I do. It’s a lot easier for me to tell someone about being disciplined than to actually show them discipline. We teach our daughters that they should have self-control over their bodies while we sit on the sofa scarfing down oreo cookies. We teach our sons that they should live a disciplined and controlled life while driving along, reacting to the man who cut us off in traffic. And then we wonder what went wrong? Why did they not get it when we told them all this? Steve pointed out to me once that Anna could bring out my “mad momma” side easiest, when she was acting like I was.
There is a lady in my Bible Study who’s daughter has an eating disorder. She made a profound comment the other day, nothing new–I had made that comment to someone in the past. But at the same time, hearing it from someone else drove it home to me. She commented that they had spent all this money, all this time, all these hospitalizations–and still her daughter was anorexic. (She is one of those 4X4 ladies–about 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide-but losing). She said she had talked to her daughter about eating disorders and taken her to counselors. Suddenly one day, when she was praying and pleading to God on her daughter’s behalf, He reminded her of the verse Matthew 7:5. “You hypocrite! Take the beam out of your own eye and then worry about taking the splinter out of someone elses eye!!” She realized that her lack of self-control, her “I want it, I like it” attitude about food was as serious and deadly of an eating disorder as her daughter’s anorexia. And that while she sat there asking God to heal her daughter of her food disorder while enjoying her own–she was nothing but a hypocrite.
She said she immediately asked for forgiveness for her attitude. For the fact that she was looking at her daughter’s eating disorder through one set of glasses, and at her own through a rosy pair of glasses that made everything look better. She said that she went to her daughter and asked her daughter’s forgiveness for preaching a lie to her through all this, for reacting to her daughter’s anorexia while justifying her own gluttony…..and then she began to work on her own eating disorder. She joined Weight Watchers. She went to a counselor to deal with stuff from her past that was causing her to turn to food for comfort. She quit getting on her daughter’s case about food diaries, and weight. Instead she transformed her mind and began to deal with her own beam. As she began to eat healthier, and to lose weight herself–and most importantly, to quit turning to food for comfort, she said it had been unreal how her daughter’s attitude had changed toward her. And that she realized that all these years, she had been living blind to the fact that she was no different than her daughter. And that whereas she always felt her daughter was being judgmental, she was simply reacting to hearing one “testimony” and watching another one. She also said that God reminded her that the only eating disorder in Scripture was gluttony….and He had plenty to say about that! 🙂
She renewed her mind, and she has begun to transform not only her life, but her daughter’s life, and the future generations in their family.
According to this, all I have to do is to renew my mind….and then I will be transformed.
Awesome!
Nellwyn
