April 10

April 10th
(Chapter 10)

I have to admit I’m a little discouraged today (which makes this chapter all the more fitting!). I stepped on the scale yesterday and saw I hadn’t made much progress in terms of weight… It really made me feel quite frustrated primarily because I have this goal for next Friday to be 159 lbs (which is needed to be attained to meet the next goal two weeks later etc…). I just don’t think I can meet my goal and feel like a failure as a result. I weighed about 164lbs (down a lb from last weigh-in) but thought I’d see more progress. Anyways, I’m “pressing on toward the goal” (phil. 3:14). I’m not giving up. I’m not a FAILURE, but rather God’s SAINT by calling who fails! (p98)

“He knows we will fail even before we do, but it is not His will that we fail without benefiting or maturing in some way from the experience.” (p99)

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” (Denis Waitley p.95)

I really appreciated the devotion that a friend sent today:

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:10

Whenever food comes into my mind and I have the strongest urges to eat, I just close my eyes, clear my head, and try to think of all the wonderful blessings God has given me. I ask God to help me, and then I wait very quietly for Him to answer my humble plea. God has never failed me. In some of the toughest situations, I feel His gentle presence, and my hunger and desire leave me. In the quiet times of our lives God comes the closest, because we do not shove Him aside with other concerns. Call upon God, then wait. He will come.

It really coincided well with p.96 “A second reason we fail is we often try to act in our own strength. Rather then waiting on God and His timing, we run ahead of him…..I presume that God needs my help, when in truth He needs my humble dependence and patience as I wait on Him and Him alone.” I see many things that a failures in my life…everytime I lack discipline and self-control with eating, emotions, speech, computer/tv time. I feel I am struggling because I have often left God out of the equation and really have willful rebellion.