Confession brings healing. A step in the right direction. Even if it’s just one.
I am both a creative and a numbers person, so the biblical significance of numbers is never lost on me. August, the eighth month of the year, already lends itself to fresh starts—new school years for many, a sign of autumn, mostly for northern states. For me, as “8” signifies the beginning of a new season, it is the perfect time to address my lingering lifetime will-battle that needs the light of the Son: an addiction to food.
The reason I share this now is because I know I’m not alone. This disturbing drag by day and dream-dogger by night has been on obvious display for all of my 44 years. I have had ample self-control when I chose it, but also a complete lack of it, having chosen that too. So goes the rolling diets—today careening through feel-fab clouds of “doing it right” and tomorrow delving into the gravity of self-sabotage and the bottomless hunger cry.
My cooperation with the Holy Spirit on this matter has fallen short at inopportune moments when I have had food in front of me. Throwing caution to the catapult, my hands fill with unpromised fulfillment, and my gut receives an unsatisfactory morsel of soothing. Temporary and devoid of desired profit, the indulgence denies my spirit what it truly craves—a filling of Him, of the food He alone provides, of a will of His desiring, not mine.
So the significance of the 22nd day of August 2022 is one of renewed cooperation, of restored unity with He who redeems the past, forgives it, and removes its sting with the hope of that new thing. It’s a surrender, hands up instead of on the food, a literal stop mid-judgment to trust the Spirit to guide the way to yay or nay: “Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on him to guide you, and He will lead you in every decision you make” (Proverbs 3:5 TPT).
This is a turning, a tightening of the surrender solution. I have tried to Surrender on the grand scale, but my will would always prevail. This is no longer a battle with the scale, but one of heart and soul and thought and desire and where I look for filling. This is the home space where I let Him change me so that the beauty can come out and be displayed instead. This is how I am comforted and secured by a God who does not do things halfway; He finishes what He starts.
Hands up and off the food. He’ll be home-defending in that moment.
The Art of Choosing True Life 