Abstinent Today:

I am a gratefully recovering compulsive overeater, abstinent by the grace of God one more* day at a time.  †

 

 

From today’s entry in Voices of Recovery:

My faith leads me to everything I need to surmount my difficulties if I am open to receiving the gift. I trust that God will take care of me.

What is recovery without faith?  Merely a healthy routine!  Many say that recovery is the first priority in life, and I say as long as that recovery leads to alignment in relationship with The Higher Power and a working, vibrant faith in Him, certainly that priority is essential.  Acting as if is a great training wheel to faith, but if we never let it launch us into free reliance on God we limit our progress by the drag of it, and the devotion which is God’s due gets lost in the religion of our methodical performance.  The VOR entry today highlights the importance of truly turning over our will and lives to God.  This vital step cannot be skipped, but it is never fully accomplished.  We constantly turn over our every moment to God, every fear, every disappointment, every hope, and we learn by making this faithful act of submission that His care is sufficient in every circumstance.  With the assurance we receive from this transaction, “we cannot fail to recover.”

 

 

From Proverbs 13, NIV:

5 The righteous hate what is false,
but the wicked make themselves a stench
and bring shame on themselves.

In his Morning and Evening devotion for today, Charles Spurgeon wrote of anger both righteous and sinful.  Besides being one of the best contrasts of the two I remember reading, it called me to remember my duty to hate what is false.  This proverb confirms that for me and reminded me of Spurgeon’s words, “He who is not angry at transgression becomes a partaker in it.”  While anger is the root of many of my defects, its intended godly purpose is to help deliver me from evil.  God’s design, including my anger response, before it was perverted by sin, was perfect.  Selfishness turned what was meant to serve God into what served to alienate me from God and man.  It is the nature of sin to corrupt its host to death.  It is the nature of renewal to discover and live in the vitality of the original design, and that includes God’s perfect will concerning anger.

Lord, help me to be angry with sin, and not sin in my anger.  Deliver me from the self-interest that twists one into the other.

 

 

 

From my reading through the Bible, currently in 2 Timothy 1, NIV:

9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

That God was working out my deliverance even before time began amazes me, and that the words “It is finished!” were uttered before I even began is both humbling and exalting at the same time.  The Creator of the universe found me worth dying for!  What can make me doubt His love after that truth finds full acceptance in my heart?  Once I truly believe, receive, and give myself to that Truth, I cannot help but begin to live in the Life that abides therein.

Thank You, dear God, for stitching together my salvation before You knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Help me live in accordance with that grace, for Your purpose and glory.

 

From the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Our Southern Friend”:

Sensuality, drunkenness, and worldliness satisfy a man for a time, but their power is a decreasing one. God produces harmony in those who receive His Spirit and follow Its dictates.

Today as I become more harmonized within, I become more in tune with all of God’s wonderful creation. The singing of the birds, the sighing of the wind, the patter of raindrops, the roll of thunder, the laughter of happy children, add to the symphony with which I am in tune. The heaving ocean, the driving rain, autumn leaves, the stars of heaven, the perfume of flowers, music, a smile, and a host of other things tell me of the glory of God.

 

 

 

Footnotes:

*Abstinence began for me on May 11th, 2010.

† For the sake of accountability, the details of my eating are posted in my online food log.