A New Season Means A New Beginning

I LOVE the spring! Nothing about nature makes me more happy than to see trees budding and leaves beginning to grow. Even though I get wicked bad allergies, there is nothing better than this time of year. To me, the change of a season signifies a new beginning. Spring really is the time for a new beginning. New life comes after the cold of winter. 

In my small group this semester we have been going over Ephesians. In chapter four, Paul tells the believers in Ephesus to take off their old selves and put on the new. This means, as a follower of Christ, we are to walk away from our old ways in order to live a new life in Christ. If someone were sweaty and covered in dirt from working outside all day you would expect that, after taking a shower, they would put on clean, fresh clothes. It wouldn't make sense to put back on those filthy dirty clothes. Same is true for those who follow Christ. A person begins dirty with sin but when someone commits their life to Christ, their sins are washed away and they are made clean. The dirty clothes are like our old life. Why would you want to cling to that old way of life when you have been given something clean and new? 

This is something that I, like many other believers, can and do struggle with. As God reveals Himself to us, there is a slow trading of the old life for the new. Sometimes there are things I feel safe with. Things in my life I don't feel I should have to give up: music, horror movies, language, gossiping, etc. All these things I slowly gave away so that I could receive the new life God has promised each and everyone of us. 

We have areas of our lives we don't see as wrong because they don't seem harmful or bad. But these things can turn into gluttony and envy. For me, one of those areas of my life is food. When my brother died, I turned to food for comfort. I would eat when I was sad and when I was bored. I would eat when I was mad. Not only would I eat, I would eat until I couldn't eat anymore. I made eating part of my identity. Someone who is doomed to over eat for the rest of her life. But that is the old me. I have made decisions again and again that I was going to be healthy. I tried to take off the old by hiding it in a box so that I could get at it when I failed. 

This time it's different. I am sick and tired of being controlled by my stomach. 

I keep telling myself that once I get to a certain place I am going to live a health life because it will be easier when conditions are right. Well... I know that future conditions will NEVER be any easier or more favorable than they are right now. I am ready to make the decision. The decision to not let food control me. I am letting God have this part of me. God is the only one I will allow to have authority over me!

This is honestly a new decision for me right now as I write this. God speaks to my heart has I write. He speaks to all of us. We just have to let ourselves hear Him. 

Thank you Lord for opening my eyes to how much I let my flesh control me. Thank you for helping me replace this old part of my life with a renewed attitude of heart. Thank you Lord for guiding me to yourself each and every day. Thank you Lord for dying on that cross so that I may know your mercy. Thank you!