I am a preparer. If a project is due next month, I’ll start to work on it today. When company is scheduled to come to my house, I begin planning the menu weeks in advance. And although retirement is decades away, I am carefully saving money today. None of this is due to any particular virtue on my part nor is it a sign that I have finally matured. (Hah!) God just made me a planner.
That’s why the fact that I eat in such unhealthy ways shows me that something deeper is going on. I know the consequences of living this way but I do it anyway. Why is that? That really is not like me.
Why Do I Live This Way?
I honestly don’t know why I eat this way, but I do know that I’ll never find out if I keep pushing away the thought with a warm muffin in my mouth.
Today’s reflection asks, “What reasons motivate your desire to eat healthier? Do these reasons give your struggles with food a purpose strong enough to help you resist unhealthy eating?”
My Deeper Loves
My love of junk food goes way beyond just enjoying the taste. When I am sad, I grab a bite. If I’m bored, why not snack? When good news comes my way there is nothing better than sitting down (or even standing) to celebrate with empty carbs. And while this all seems harmless in the moment there is something deeper going on.
I don’t know what that deeper thing is, but God does. What I do know is that I will never discover what that deeper thing is and how God can help me as long as I keep managing the ups and downs on life on my own.
What motivates me to want to eat healthier? The desire to live all of life through the power of God, which I hope to discover is better than any sugar high.
Jump Right In
To increase accountability and encourage others PLEASE take a minute to comment below: introduce yourself, share your successes or struggles, add your food list or simply say ‘hi.’
The journey to change will be more successful if you walk it with others.
What reasons motivate your desire to eat healthier?
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I’ll be frank, my main reason is a big fat roll that has appeared the last 4-5 months under my breasts. Ack! I’ve never had fat THERE before…must be a midlife thing? Oh wait, it could be a- ‘eat cookies and carbs all winter’ thing. Yea. Plus that craving thing…learning to be satisfied be Real things, like time with God, instead of fluffy sugar.
I’m with you, Robin. It’s time to satisfy myself by going to the One who loves me so much.
For me it’s definitely an emotional connection-a long-term one. I was “the fat girl” growing up and food was everything-what I turned to when I was sad, lonely, bored, frustrated, and what my parents (as many of us do) used to celebrate milestones and good report cards and more.
Untangling those emotions from food has been a lifelong struggle. Now I’m praying more and more that God help me to see food just as food, not love, or compassion, or a friend or anything else; to take the emotional aspect and power it holds away.
Wow - powerful thoughts, Joyous. I’m so glad we have an all-powerful God.
I am finding this study incredibly enlightening!!!
Thank you all, Kelly
I think many of us have MANY motivations to eat healthier. Mine is because nutrition and fitness have been a life long passion of mine. I MUST live it to role model it. My children are HUGE motivators in eating healthy. But are any of these more motivating than the strength of a craving for food? To stuff myself? Because of my addiction to food, I have listened to the enemy and I have a hidden secrets(well, I hide it from the children) regarding my obsession with food. I have used food to cover up too many emotions (stuffing them), then used purging to release them. Today on the radio was this: “If I had all the faith in the world and no troubles then why have faith at all? I don’t know if that makes sense to any of you, but my eating (disorder) has lead me to grow closer to God. I know I wouldn’t be as close to Him if it wasn’t for this (and of course I don’t wish it on anyone! I just think it was God trying to wake me up and bring me in!). I love when Lisa mentions that her cravings were a “prompt to pray”. This weekend I commit to praying instead of craving! I am going to train myself to crave to pray!
“Crave to pray,” I like that. In fact, that is what we were created to do, isn’t it? I agree. It is all too easy to hide my desire for God in a chocolate covered anything. My constant whisper to self is, “Jesus is better. Jesus is better.”
I’ve always been very healthy. It’s only in the last decade of my life that I’ve gotten fat and unhealthy. I eat because I’m anxious, bored, or just plain greedy. I also tend to inhale my food, like I can’t eat it fast enough. For all this, eating seems to be a temporary fix, like a bandaid, that prevents something from welling up inside, a hunger for something that until now, I had no idea how to satisfy. It is this that God is addressing through this study. I’m a little afraid that somehow I’ll miss it even though I know that, in Christ, all things are possible.