Let me give you some context. As many of you know, I went on a diet in early January. (No, not a new years resolution. I have to mentally prepare myself in order to diet. I wasn't ready until around January 10.) In any case, dieting and exercise are the only way I have ever successfully lost weight. I count my calories and I give myself credit for exercise. In such a way, I lost the extra weight I had gained in 2014. It took both work and dedication. I think the most important component was consistency. I had to make it a priority to work out every day, and I had to avoid places and things I knew would keep me from success.
I discovered that if I didn't work out in the morning, despite my best intentions, I would probably not work out that day at all. If I got a hamburger at Five Guys, I almost always ate some french fries, even when I was determined to avoid them. I learned to always save myself a hefty chunk of calories for that glorious time after the kids went to bed, because I crave cookies around then.
I made this diet a priority, and I got into pretty good shape. I've been telling myself I should take some photos of me working out to put up in my home gym for a long time. Whitney (my husband) finally encouraged me to do it just after the diet ended "because I was at my leanest right now." He's probably right. Now that I'm off my diet, I am back to eating a lot of cookies. I am back to eating french fries with my burger and not worrying about it. I am back to eating two muffins instead of one. I am no longer tracking my calories and I am not watching my weight. I won't be surprised if the scale inches up little by little over the next ten months until January 2016. I will probably be right back where I started, on a diet again.
I agree that we should all be feasting on the words of Christ (aka, reading the Bible) but I am going to use an inverse analogy. In order to stay physically fit, you need to watch what you eat. You need to exercise or it will slip away. Similarly, if you're out of shape, you can't run to the gym and hop on a treadmill and knock back 10 miles. You have to work up to that.
Your testimony of Christ and your knowledge of His life and His plan for you is exactly the same.
You need to set time aside every single day to work on it, to build your faith, to increase your knowledge. You need to make it a priority. If you don't you will backslide. I have a few beloved family members who are telling me they "just don't have a testimony anymore." Let me tell you precisely how and why that has happened. They had strong testimonies. Their testimonies were shiny and beautiful. Then either doubt or laziness crept in and instead of really focusing on it, they didn't read. They skipped church. They didn't pray. They let it go.
Now they are telling me, and they are completely right, that they don't believe in God. They aren't sure if He lives. They don't believe He has a Son and that Jesus Christ came to the Earth to live perfectly and die unjustly just to rise again and save us all. "Think about it," they tell me. "It just doesn't make sense."
The best things in life do not make sense. Other than the gospel, the best thing in my life is my relationship with my husband, and my kids. My husband is a farmer and a physician. I know nothing about farming. I know nothing about medicine. He loves to run. I run only when chased. He loves to research old cars and dreams of owing an RV. He likes camping. I think the idea of an RV is ludicrous, I hate old cars and I think staying at anything less than a Holiday Inn should qualify as camping. And yet, I love that man to distraction. We laugh, we work out together and I will never give him up, not even if I have to get down on a tattered blanket inside a plastic tent on the friggin ground where there are bugs and rocks and dirt and sleep there for the night. I will do it because the things that don't make sense are the things that are worth it.
My kids are hanging on me night and day, whining and crying and mooching and making messes, ruining things right and left. I swear they have a PhD in complaining and a Masters in destruction and they are the lights in my life. Things that don't make sense are not always untrue. I know in my bones that Jesus is my Savior. I can see the truth of it all around me, and I can feel the Spirit testify to me that it is true. That He loves me. That He lives.
But you can't come to that conclusion in a day, and once you do, you can't sit back and expect that faith to persist. Just like you can't develop a perfect body and then BAM you're done, you can't develop a strong testimony and then do nothing. You must work at it every single day.
If you want to nourish your testimony, if you want to create one, or if you want to rehabilitate a flagging or debilitated testimony, here are my four parallels to gaining a healthy physique:
Now they are telling me, and they are completely right, that they don't believe in God. They aren't sure if He lives. They don't believe He has a Son and that Jesus Christ came to the Earth to live perfectly and die unjustly just to rise again and save us all. "Think about it," they tell me. "It just doesn't make sense."
The best things in life do not make sense. Other than the gospel, the best thing in my life is my relationship with my husband, and my kids. My husband is a farmer and a physician. I know nothing about farming. I know nothing about medicine. He loves to run. I run only when chased. He loves to research old cars and dreams of owing an RV. He likes camping. I think the idea of an RV is ludicrous, I hate old cars and I think staying at anything less than a Holiday Inn should qualify as camping. And yet, I love that man to distraction. We laugh, we work out together and I will never give him up, not even if I have to get down on a tattered blanket inside a plastic tent on the friggin ground where there are bugs and rocks and dirt and sleep there for the night. I will do it because the things that don't make sense are the things that are worth it.
My kids are hanging on me night and day, whining and crying and mooching and making messes, ruining things right and left. I swear they have a PhD in complaining and a Masters in destruction and they are the lights in my life. Things that don't make sense are not always untrue. I know in my bones that Jesus is my Savior. I can see the truth of it all around me, and I can feel the Spirit testify to me that it is true. That He loves me. That He lives.
But you can't come to that conclusion in a day, and once you do, you can't sit back and expect that faith to persist. Just like you can't develop a perfect body and then BAM you're done, you can't develop a strong testimony and then do nothing. You must work at it every single day.
If you want to nourish your testimony, if you want to create one, or if you want to rehabilitate a flagging or debilitated testimony, here are my four parallels to gaining a healthy physique:
1. Do It Every Single Day. In order to get into shape, I had to work out and watch my food consumption every day. Likewise, you must read in the scriptures and pray every single day. If you go to church weekly as you should, you have heard this over and over. You already KNOW you should be doing this. The hard part is doing it!! I would recommend you pick a time (for me, I always worked out just after the kids left on the bus) and read and study and pray at that same time, rain or shine, school or not. Make this something that matters. Some days I had to cut my workout to just 30 minutes and some days you will have to cut your reading time to a few verses. That's okay. Just make sure you still DO IT and that you don't let your one short day turn into several. If you're worried you won't remember, put a sign on the fridge. Or enter "scripture reading" as a repeating event on your phone and make your phone ring and remind you every morning at 8 am.
2. Avoid Bad Places and Things. I could not go out to eat at many of my favorite places during my diet because I knew I'd consume my weekly calories in one meal. I couldn't conceive of being set back that far because I didn't want to have to extend my diet. Your eternal salvation is every bit as important. Every single reader here has a favorite sin, or a particular weakness that was handcrafted for them. CS Lewis wasn't wrong when he wrote the Screwtape Letters--Satan has certain sins in mind for each of us, the ones we like, the ones we miss, the ones we love. Think of yours--it could be as big as adultery or as small as gossip. If there is a place you go or a thing you do that makes it just a little easier to contemplate that sin, GET RID OF IT. If you are an alcoholic, that's an easy one. Stay away from bars or events where people are drinking. If you're addicted to porn, put the computer out in an open spot and smash that laptop to bits. Make yourself accountable. My point here is that there are things you can do to either encourage good behavior or discourage bad.
3. Prepare for Success. I love cookies. 90% of the weight I gained in 2014 was from eating cookies. My love handles smell like butter and flour and sugar. Seriously. (Ok, maybe from my cookie scented lotion, but still...) Before I started my diet, I had to get rid of my typical bags of frozen cookie dough (I make double batches and freeze the dough in big bags so I can just pop it into the oven and have warm cookies anytime.) Instead, I made a few lower calorie cookies (small ones!) and froze them in bags of just one or two cookies. This made it more likely I could keep within my goal range in an ongoing and realistic manner. I also came up with a list of easy to eat diet foods that I liked. Lentil soup (also frozen in single serve size bags), oatmeal with fruit, cottage cheese with fruit, eggs with salsa, the list goes on and on. The point here is that I planned for a way to succeed. You need to do the same thing with your salvation.
What's keeping you away from church? Kids are a mess? Put together a church bag with toys, games, coloring stuff so that they can be excited to see these things. If you're struggling with what to wear, treat yourself. Head over to Ross or somewhere and get a new outfit. If you don't enjoy reading the scriptures, skip the parts you dislike! Eli hates the Isaiah stuff and I let him skip some of it. Go buy some contemporary church books about particular topics and substitute that every other day for the actual scriptures. Having trouble making time? Set your alarm back 15 minutes and use those extra minutes to read. There are lots of things you can do here, only limited by your creativity.
4. Get Support Lined Up. I talked to Whitney before I started this diet. I explained to the kids I would be eating a little differently. They were pretty supportive and willing to eat a lot of the things I ate, too. They actually loved my lentil soup. You need to get your family and friends ready or get them to do this with you! You can even commit to make this a priority with them, and both check in with each other. You need to make sure you are not trying to do this on your own. It's a lifestyle change and it's not temporary like my maintenance diet. It's a permanent change and you'll need some help, some cheerleading. But it will be worth it, because as nice as it is to have a healthy body, you need a healthy spirit even more. Make that commitment and make sure you aren't spiritually fat anymore.
The great thing about this kind of commitment is that you really can feast on the word, and you won't gain a single pound. ;)
The great thing about this kind of commitment is that you really can feast on the word, and you won't gain a single pound. ;)
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