True Deliverance

Most people that have spent any significant time with me know that for most of my life I lived enslaved to gluttony or what the world more commonly calls an eating disorder or perhaps a food addiction. I was taught to abuse food as a little girl before I was old enough to know right from wrong. By the time I was old enough to know better, those flesh patterns were deeply set in me and an addiction or what I refer to as bondage had already took place. Being in bondage to food is no different, in my opinion, than being in bondage to anything else. Cocaine, heroine, sex, self, money... you really could put almost anything here. Everyone on the planet is or has been in bondage, enslaved, shackled to something at one time or another. This is true whether you believe it or not. I once read a book where the author said that some people's bondage may look like USDA prime choice flesh, but its a flesh pattern nonetheless. This means that someone that is addicted to the pursuit of money may look prettier on the outside than someone that is addicted to food, but the addiction is the same. The person addicted to food may weight 300 pounds and drive an old Ford whereas the person addicted to the pursuit of money may have a lucrative career and drive a Porsche, but both people are still enslaved to something. They are slaves.

For many years I sought the help of counselors, diet pills, self-help books, physicians, gyms, and all kinds of other things to help me lose weight. I would lose the weight for a while, but would always return - as the bible puts it- to my vomit. Simply put, this means I would return to the object of my addiction. I would return to the thing that kept me in bondage. I'd return to the prison of my food addiction. Enslaved and unable to do anything else but gain all of my weight back.

Several years ago, my friend Enrica's husband gave me a book "Lifetime Guarantee" by Bill Gilham. I really believe that this was the beginning of a journey God started in my life. This was the catalyst of removing the shackles of my slavery to food. Its taken several years, but during this time, I believe I have found the solution, the answer, the cure, the miracle if you will, for all addictions.

I'd like to share that with you now as I shared it with my friend earlier.

I think for some people this process is immediate. God removes the addiction the way you'd remove a splinter from your finger. Its done quickly and fairly painlessly and always to His glory. This wasn't the case for me. My story took several years and it wasn't a road that wasn't without pain. I don't know why some people it takes longer and some its quickly. We each have a calling and a purpose. I can only speak of what God has done for me for His glory.

I am not a bible scholar. I don't have lots of bible verses to share with you to prove my theory. If you have some to share, please share them with me. I'd love to have bible verses to support my experience. I can only tell you what God has done for me.

God showed me that my bondage was removed at the cross. The work was done and finished when Jesus was nailed on the cross. "It is finished!" It meant exactly that. It was all done for me. I receive it by grace. God's grace and only God's grace frees me from the bondage of my food addiction.

I wasn't delivered from the bondage of my food addiction when I became a Christian, in my opinion, because I didn't truly understand my identity in Christ. I lived like a slave to my flesh for decades. It wasn't until recently after a weird medication side effect left me unable to eat that I started to hear the voice of God concerning my food addiction. When I no longer had the medication side effect, I once again started to practice my food addiction. It was then that God loudly and clearly spoke to me. "YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THAT." This was obviously true since on the medicine I had been able to go without being a glutton. Until that moment I truly believed that I had no choice but to constantly eat and live enslaved to food. It wasn't instantaneously, but in the days and weeks and months since that time God has spoken to me and told me that I do not have to overeat. Its been a process.

I have lost a lot of weight since that time. I continue to eat a very reduced calorie diet. I do this as a way to bring my body under authority to Christ rather than being under authority to food. My body was enslaved to food for so long that it is now learning to be enslaved and in submission to the things of God. Yes, I am being a bit extreme as is evident by the amount of weight I have lost, but then again when you have lived on the other side in extreme indulgence you must be extreme. I have learned that there are certain foods that tend to trigger the desire to overeat and I avoid them. Some people would say that this means I haven't been truly delivered. I'd say this might be true. I am being delivered. I'd also say that I am resisting the devil. Again, this is a process. I know I won't always have to avoid certain foods just as I won't always have to live with a very reduced calorie diet. I lived with an eating disorder/bondage/gluttony/food addiction for a long time. I believe God can extend grace to heal me immediately or he can choose to heal me day by day. I know that whatever God chooses to do he will do it for his glory, my good, and the good of others and I am okay with that. For the time being, this is what I believe God is calling me to do and I believe this is key to my deliverance. Until then, I praise him every day giving him the glory for the miracle he has given me. I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I do not have to confess the sin of gluttony. In the past, years went by without a day of me not having a gluttony free day. Praise be to the God of heaven and earth for his amazing grace that has delivered me from the chains of the sin of gluttony and food addiction. May His name be forever praised.

I pray that today you would find deliverance from the chains that hold you captive. I pray you would find your deliverance at the foot of the cross, through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and open the doors for receiving that grace by realizing who you are today- your identity in Jesus Christ.