It’s the Defiance That Gives us the High

The following thoughts are something my wife shared with a fellow dieter. I told my wife I loved what she is seeing and recognizing to the be the truth and how when it is received, the lies that have kept us as loathsome bound victims, begin to fall by the way side.
The inability to differentiate between who we are in Christ and what the parasite (Satan in our flesh) is saying, is the difference between going through religious motions vs having Life.

Rich

So last night I found myself thinking, as I gazed longingly at the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting I’d made for Richard’s birthday (and of which I had not had so much as a bite since I made it two days ago):

“I’m so sick of this stupid diet! I can’t do this anymore! I’m FED UP WITH DEPRIVING MYSELF! I’m not hungry, yet I find myself craving the very stuff I cannot have. Every time I look in the fridge and see the few measly things I’m allowed to eat, it turns my stomach because I’m tired of the restriction, tired of not being able to have what I want! I’m tired of having to say no all the time to things other people get to enjoy!”

I was mad.

Then a thought occurred to me:

So what do you want, Margo? Do you want to continue to lose weight, or do you want to cave in to your familiar, feel-good lust-cravings – that part of you that DEMANDS to be fed – that relentless self-indulgence and arrogance that insinuates you deserve to have whatsoever you lust after, that seeks to undermine all your efforts thus far, the one that shouts “NO!!! I WILL NOT DENY MYSELF!!!”

Then a second thought occurred to me:

Just exactly whose thoughts are those? Hmmmm? The ones that try to convince me to give up or that I don’t have what it takes to see this thing through to the end, the ones that make me feel sorry for myself, the ones that convince me that SELF deserves better? If they’re MY thoughts, then clearly I’m bent on self-destruction, obsessed with self-pity, intent on cutting myself off at the knees. If I give in to these thoughts, for sure I’m going to feel like an utter failure, a loser, worthless, fat, ugly and stupid, incapable of self-discipline, filled with shame and self-loathing, just like before.

But is that true? Is that who I really am in Christ? Would his indwelling spirit cause me to think that way?

Of course not! At that moment, I recognized the voice of the enemy subtly disguised as MY thoughts, so familiar to me that I didn’t even question them when they insinuated their way into my unguarded subconscious. Satan’s been losing his grasp on me in direct proportion to the amount of weight I’ve lost. I know full well he wants me to return to my former self-loathing state because I’m much more pliable in his hands when I’m in that condition. Being fat caused me to hate myself and to be filled with shame, which in turn blinded me from seeing that my mind had been taken captive by the lies I had believed, which in turn kept me from seeing the truth of my identity in Christ.

When I started to examine the thoughts, I discovered they all boiled down to the same tired old theme:

You know you’re not going to be able to stick this out! Admit it!
Enough is enough!
Give in to the temptation. You’ll feel better.
Eat what you know is forbidden for you. Screw it!
See? You haven’t really changed. You don’t have what it takes.
Give up.
You know you’re going to fail.
You deserve to indulge and coddle yourself.
Go ahead – one little bite won’t hurt.

Notice that I substituted the pronoun ‘I’ for ‘you’…because I realized the thoughts were not my own, but accusatory thoughts from a hostile alien source. Putting the pronouns in proper context helped me to discern the beguiling tone of the assaults much more clearly.
For me, the issue is with craving/consuming food I know very well is bad for me. For someone else, the issue may be excessive shopping, drinking, socializing, hoarding or whatever else it takes to get the ‘high’ that they falsely believe will make them feel better. We all know to indulge the craving is wrong: “It is a sin when someone knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it.” (James 4:17) yet we do it anyway out of defiance: I will NOT be restricted! I will have MY OWN WAY! Even though we know very well that we’ll feel rotten afterwards and that we’ll hate ourselves for capitulating, it’s the defiance that gives us the ‘high’, and in that sense we’re much like a drug addict who’ll do anything to get the next fix.
Insanity, right?

By the way, I did not eat the carrot cake.