God’s Design

I don’t know about y’all, but as soon as it was November 1st it became full on christmas in our house!! My family and I get so excited for Christmas, we can hardly stand it!! It’s been quite busy decorating our house, learning Christmas music for our Christmas show in December and getting ready for a photo shoot next week!! (And we have been working on something else that I can’t say just yet!!)

Ok, enough about what’s up with me. I want to talk about God’s design versus our design. We as a people like to think we know best and we want our own design for ourselves. I thought of this the other day as I was reminded of how I used to think when I was anorexic. But this thread of thinking, “I have my own design for me and I know what’s best” is a continual thread throughout humanity and all of time. And it has also been a thread throughout my whole journey through eating disorders and even through my recovery. 

*Quick Disclaimer: Before I go any further into today's topic, I always like to remind people, I am talking about one aspect of my eating disorder and eating disorders in general. There is a whole boatload of things that cause our disorders; different hurts, scars, journeys, situations, lives … there are so many different factors that drive and feed our eating disorder. So today I am just talking about one side to what drives our eating disorders. Just one. And I also mention diets later on and not having any food restrictions … this does not apply to you if you need to be on a diet for your health or your journey. Everybody has specific needs and journeys … I am speaking from my own and not from anybody else's. So if what I say does not apply to you or offends you, that is not my intention. I am very aware that we all have unique and individual journeys.  

Back to our topic. When I was anorexic I wanted to eat the way I wanted to eat. I didn’t want to eat when I didn’t want to eat, I wanted to eat the amount I wanted to eat. When I was bulimic I wanted to eat whenever and however much I wanted to eat and I didn’t want to have moderation. When I was recovering I would try to lose weight and would try to control my food and eat what I wanted to eat in order to lose weight. Ultimately I was trying to control how I looked. But when I got sick of doing that I then wanted to binge and eat however much I wanted to eat. Basically the bottom line is … I wanted to eat the way I wanted to eat! Period. Or in this case, an exclamation mark! 

I didn’t like God’s design for my body. I didn’t want to trust the fact that He made my body capable of taking care of itself if I followed His designs and natural guidelines for our bodies. 

You see, God has a design and His design is best. He has made our bodies to eat 3 - 6 times a day. He has given us hunger cues to go off of so that we eat when we’re hungry. He has given our bodies little alarm clocks … think about that!! How cool is that!?! He showed us in His Word that we don’t even need restrictions on what we eat. (See Acts 10:9-16) We can eat any food … in moderation. It can be a mix of chips, vegetables, ice cream, fruits, meats, (yes that includes bacon and sausage) bread, candy, fast food … we can eat any and all of it … in moderation! Our bodies fluctuate and change so some days I want all carbs, or some days I want a good salad full of yummy veggies, and some days I want ice cream and chips for dinner and that’s ok!! Because it all balances out! 

He has given us different desires and cravings for different days so that we end up enjoying so many different things! He knows how quickly we get bored and so He has given us so much variety to enjoy! But we take it and think we know best so we end up shoving it all down the drain and decide for ourself what’s best. We come up with diets and restrictions and/or eat everything we desire and live our days in misery because we think we know best. 

Or life starts getting out of control due to different stresses or certain happenings and so we go to food to control because it’s just right there to control and we start saying what and how we're gonna eat. Before you know it you may be in an eating disorder without even realizing it … or at least just be living in bondage to food because controlling food gives you a certain amount of comfort, safety and control. *Please remember, this is just one aspect of eating disorders.*

That is at least what happened to me. Since 2010 whenever life got stressful, I would go to food or away from food to control it. I even did that as a little girl without knowing what I was doing. But I do know throughout all of it that there was a part in my brain throughout my whole journey that thought I knew best … but I didn’t. 

We should not be surprised that this is how we think. See, Satan is the author of sin. He isn’t creative and this thread of thinking “we know what’s best” goes aaaaaall the way back to the very beginning of time. He fed that lie to Eve and told her that God doesn’t really know what’s best and that God is keeping things from us so we need to do it ourselves and taste whatever we want to taste in order to experience what's best. (See Genesis 3)

Eve did taste what she thought was best … and it brought sin and death into the world and we are still living in the action of what she thought was best. All because Satan told her she knew what was best … not God. This lie that he has used for so long is something we see him trying to destroy everything with today. Think of all the re-designing they are doing nowadays with trans-humanism and AI and even the filters on social media. The filters alone tell us that we look better having something distort and perfect our face. Shouldn’t our faces be good enough just as they are? (I can’t even begin with the trans-humanism and AI.)

Satan has fed the lie to so many people that we know what's best. We can create humans the way we want to create them. We can eat however we want to eat with all or no restrictions at all. We can live the way we want to live, look the way we want to look, change who we are because after all … we know what’s best. And by living that way we are essentially saying we are better than God, know more than Him and are our own god.

It’s in the air we breathe folks, so of course it's going to be how we think. We should not be surprised … but we should be aware. 

The very fact we deal with disorders and addictions is because we think we know what’s best. Let me tell you, we don’t know what's best. We just don’t. In fact we are only capable of getting out of balance and imprisoned in our addictions and disorders. Just look at the world around us! The rise of addictions and disorders and disasters and evil in our day is unprecedented, astounding and tragic. It is only through God’s design that we can live in true freedom and balance and peace. There is no other way. God knows exactly what we need in order to live our best life IF we will only surrender to His design. 

It’s as simple and as hard as that. 

I want to encourage you today to not give into the lie that is in the air we breathe. If you are seeking recovery … it will be found in Him and in His way of doing things. We don’t know what’s best so I encourage you to get to know the One, the Designer and Creator who does know best. He wants you to live your best life. He wants it more for us than we even do! Let me tell you from personal experience, it will be easier to submit to Him the more you get to know Him. And He has given us His Word, His love message to us so that we can know Him, trust Him and submit to Him in order to live our best life for Him. 

~ Natalie