food and the Spirit

This blog will be reposted at both Transformed and Not By Bread Alone...

This diet that I have been on is both good for me and hard to do, hard to stick to and yet so necessary.

Over the Christmas holidays I ate more bread products and sugar than I should have, though I was still good on the dairy end. By the weekend between Chritmas and New Year's , nearly a week of not eating what I should, I felt it. My joints hurt and my belly revolted. While I could blame the joints on the snowstorm Saturday, there is no reason for my belly except I cheated.

And once again I acknowledged this truth and vowed to eat only what I need to in order to avoid this problem.

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My thought life and spiritual input have been less thans stellar lately. So much so that I am in the dark. I have immersed myself in the equivalent of marshmallows, and sometimes even the equivalent of antifreeze. When I stop long enough to think, I realize I am sad and lonely and unhappy. So I reach for more "marshmallows" to make me feel better, but the results are always the same.

Last night I realized this truth -- again; just as the bread makes my belly hurt, what I have been reading and thinking about is making my heart hurt. And it is a hurt that doesn't work itself out. It needs the grace and intervention of God.

Every time I go through this cycle (I am sooooo like the Israelites in the time of the Judges!), I return, eventually, to 2 Peter 1: 3-9. And it seems each time God emphasizes something different for me to learn.
This time it is verse 4:

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Why has He given me his precious promises? Such promises as "I will never leave you or forsake you" and "There is therefore now no condemnation" and "Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest."

These promises are so that I can participate in his divine nature and ESCAPE THE CORRUPTION IN THE WORLD CAUSED BY EVIL DESIRES. 

My problem is neither that I like bread, nor that I read what I shouldn't.

My problem -- my sin -- is that I am not fulfilling God's purpose for my life.