7 Years of Feast and Famine

If you only knew me prior to college or if you have only met me in the past 4 years, there's something you may not know about me: I was heavy for 7 years of my life. I thought I would share what motivated me to finally lose and to keep off the weight after dieting failed me.

7 Years of Feast 

My 7 years of physical feast lasted from 2002-2009. My highest official weight was 218 lbs but I'm pretty sure I crossed 220 on my honeymoon (yes, I was my heaviest around my wedding, unfortunately).

During these 7 years, I was:

• Mostly inactive
• Incredibly unhealthy
• Wearing a new, larger wardrobe
• Less happy

7 Years of Famine

I felt called into ministry as a teenager and went to Bible college in 2001. Around my sophomore year, I entered into a spiritual funk of sorts. I still loved God and still felt called to serve in ministry, but I wasn't growing a whole lot spiritually. This remained true in my first 4 years of youth ministry as well. I think it might be easiest just to show you what I wasn't consistently doing:

• Praying
• Reading the Bible
• Studying
• Reading useful books

The Weekend that Changed My Life.

While I talk about this one weekend, I would be naive to think that there weren't a number of other things paving the way for this life change. For example, I had recently read a book called Enemy Access Denied by John Bevere which was instrumental. But this weekend was where everything came to fruition.

I was at a youth pastor retreat. I had been praying for a breakthrough in my spiritual life for some time. I had one particular sin that really had a grip on me and I was fed up. I needed a change. I did the only thing I knew to do...I prayed.

Then it all just kind of happened. I had a life-changing epiphany. For the first time I realized something critical:

My 7 years of physical feast was directly related to my 7 years of spiritual famine.

I realized that I had been struggling with the sin of gluttony (Proverbs 23:19-21). And as long as I was leaving the door open for the enemy to have access in this area, I was going to struggle in other areas as well. More specifically, I realized that all my struggles (the sin, my spiritual walk and my gluttony) were all really the same struggle: I lacked self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

I had attempted dieting and failed miserably. But now for the first time I viewed this as a spiritual issue rather than a physical one.

I was changed that day. God gave me victory over my gluttony and also the other area I had been struggling with. By that fall, I had run my first marathon. By the next I had run another and was in the best shape of my life. More importantly, however, my walk with God has grown tremendously ever since. My prayer life, Bible reading, studying and even reading have all improved and continue to improve. I became a completely new person...from the inside out!

I know that not everyone who struggles with weight is facing a larger spiritual issue (although they might be), but for me there was no doubt. My physical feast and spiritual famine were intertwined. Dieting couldn't make me lose weight, only a life-change could. That's why I never want to see the heavy-me again. Because I know it could bring some of the other internal struggles back with it.