In-Struct-ion

Published by christi on February 6, 2020February 6, 2020

This day has been a pain in the back. Literally. I have been sitting with a sock of heated beans against my lower back all morning. I don’t know what I did to it; I just know it hurts to bend, reach, stretch and, worst of all, walk!

Actually, there are two active crises: my back hurts and my fitness tracking device is not working! After 3 years of faithfully counting my swimming laps, my gardening efforts and my household steps, it is dead! I was frustrated and anxious because of it and spent some time this morning asking God for help unpacking my feelings.

I have been so dependent on the device keeping track of my activity that the threat of being without it fills me with fear. Well, not really fear as much as abandonment…I have been left..but without what?

Guidance about what I can eat and still control my weight? The safety net of step counting? Fear of not getting to eat enough…not “enough to eat” but “to eat enough.”

Food…talk about a complicated relationship.

If I eat too much, or things different from what I need, I gain weight, blood pressure rises, cholesterol increases, depression hits. If I eat too little, my body goes into starvation mode and turns everything I put in my mouth into fat, even if it is less calories than I need. Often in my mind, food equals love, so if I can’t eat “enough,” I feel sad and unloved, abandoned and bereft.

Food has long been my comforter. It has often taken the Holy Spirit’s place. I have checked in with the fitness app and the step count for what and how much I can eat. Doesn’t Jesus say, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”?

I have been a follower of Jesus for a long time…why can’t I just listen to His voice and eat (or not eat) what is good by His definition?

So I asked Him.

This is what I heard:

…because you are a child. You need extra structure and instruction.

Until I heard this, I never saw the connection between these two words!

We give our children the external structure (protection, boundaries, consequences, nurture, correction, information, reinforcement)  they need… by instruction, until they have enough internal structure to live safely without it, and until the relationship we have with them grows from parent-child to adult-adult.

As a child of God, I will continue to need extra structure and instruction in areas of my life at least until I step into eternity. And I am thankful to have such a patient Father, who still in-structs me after so many years, and who does not shame me for still needing to be instructed.

Following Jesus every day in the everyday!

Christi