thoughts on weight

I've needed to lose weight for a long time and from time to time I've started different plans, different exercises ect...but have always given up. My life has been characterized by laziness in so many ways, for so long, that my body is just one result of that root. But it's hard, it's hard to change your mind set and it's hard to honestly look at yourself and to really evaluate how you got to be "this way."

I don't think that God desires every woman to look like a super model, if he did then he would have made us all to be 5'8 or taller with super metabolism and great legs and upper body features. But instead He chose to give each woman a different set of unique features that makes her attractive in her own way.

I find it interesting that for so long I've spent a lot of time analyzing, wishing my body looked like "hers" or was more like "that" but I've come to the conclusion that if God wanted it to be that way he would have done it. As my counselor said "all we need to do is make the best out of what we got". That's what we should do...we shouldn't aspire to look like super models but we should aspire to do the best we can with what God has given us. For some us that simply means that we exercise and eat healthy and we do everything for the glory of God, including how we treat and manage our own bodies. I think it means that we throw away our idols of overindulgence and we learn to be self-controlled. But it can also mean that we throw away our idols of "looking a certain way" and learn to be content with what God has given us.

This last part i find the most difficult to do. In truth, there is, I think, apart of every woman that wished she looked like a super model. That part of us that thinks we would have the admiration and respect it seems like our society automatically gives to "beautiful" people. And i begin to lust for it, i lust for it so much at times that i actually seem to take steps to reaching it and when I realize how so far off it seems i give up and go back to my lazy ways and lust for food instead. I am reminded of my sinful nature and how I can turn any 'good gift' from the Lord into an idol.

I asked Carl a question this morning and so now I'll ask you...How does one learn to do anything for the glory of God and not make their ambitions an idol? And not seek after it for their own praise, secretly wishing to steal Gods glory? How do we do that as the sinful Christians we are who have been saved by grace, how do we tap more into that grace filled part of our lives and less into the sin filled part of them?

I've thought a lot recently about Christians who receive complements and say "Praise the Lord" afterwards...For a long time i thought that these Christians were just being over spiritual or even just wanted to come across as spiritual, but lately I've been wondering maybe there's something to it. Maybe there is something to verbally reminding ourselves that every good quality that we have is not of ourselves but it is of God. And maybe by doing such 'verbal' reminders can be an act of humility on our part and we have to trust that the Holy Spirit will convict us if we don't really mean it. But i wonder if we are to put off pride (selfish pride that is) then maybe, saying "Praise the Lord" at the end of a complement or the end of a goal ect...is one way that will help us.

I just wonder as I embark on this journey of weight loss how to do it for the glory of God and not of that for my own recognition and praise. Is it even possible? Maybe that's a stupid question, but is it possible?