The following is an excerpt from an email we received yesterday in response to Janelle’s post:
Thank you for having the courage to say "gluttony" in public. I would beseech you to do a series on gluttony. I fight the battle with gluttony continually. I very much love God's gift of food and overeat on a regular basis because I so desire the pleasure that the first bite brings me. It’s so difficult to remember that by the time I get too many bites in, I am no longer experiencing pleasure but I keep searching for it, bite after bite. I have been reading and re-reading Elyse Fitzpatrick's Love to Eat, Hate to Eat
for the last four years trying to incorporate the Biblical truths into my daily life; some moments God gives the grace and other days I choose to sin. It has been lonely because when I have tried to share some of the truths or even talked about my size I am dismissed. When a woman says she's fat, no other woman wants to jump in and say "You're right, can I help?" If I've wanted to discuss the contrast between Weight Watchers "eat what you want, as much as you want as long as you stay in your points range" vs. the Biblical idea of self-control, of pleasing God--not self, I am seen as attacking a sacred cow. I have done Weight Watchers before and I think there are lots of good things, but in my experience most people will boil down the good principles to the above idea; in addition, like anything else discernment needs to be practiced. Please do consider a series.
How I admire this woman’s humility and discernment. She takes the sin of gluttony seriously. But while
benefiting from a reputable weight-loss program, she realizes there’s something more important than inches off her waistline: “pleasing God—not self.”
If we diet only to improve our appearance or reach a personal goal, we are no more pleasing God than if we indulged our every desire for food. Not eating for vanity’s sake is as sinful as gluttony for appetite’s sake. We can’t conquer one sin with another. We can’t fight selfishness with selfishness.
As the ever-insightful CS Lewis puts it:
“He cannot bless us unless he has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him.”
Christ claims all—including our eating habits. But first, He gave all; He gave His life for us on the cross. If we repent from our vanity and our gluttony and look to our Savior, there, and only there, we will find the power and help to please God.
