Food-Filled Fridays: Sugar, Sweets, and Self-Control

Did you check out last week’s Food-Filled Friday??  I hope that in this past week you have had a chance to enjoy some of those Unusual and/or Unappreciated Fruits.  Either way, read on and enjoy the next edition of this weekly segment. 🙂

I’ve never had a sweet tooth.  Ask Adam.  I’ve been the one to take a bite of his ice cream and call it a day.  However, since I’ve been able to expand my horizons and have some sugar after the solving of my yeast problem, I have developed quite the sweet tooth.  It’s awful, and I would love to not have it anymore.  Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think it will last. I just think that sugar in general is something that I went for months without so now my body is a little bit freaking out by being aloud to have it now.

You know me.  I love food. I appreciate its taste, its textures, its creative combinations, and even its appearance.

However, like I mentioned yesterday with my blog on food (yeah, I wrote about food on a Thursday – it was amazing to have another excuse to think about it 🙂 ), staying healthy really comes down to one major fact: self-control.

That is the lesson I am learning with this random new experience of a sweet tooth.  That is the plan I am setting about adding to my life.  What is self-control if you never desire something you shouldn’t have?  It’s non-existent because the desire is not there.

Imagine a life where you never desired what is wrong?  You would never need self-control, you would never need anything. If your desires are right, then your actions would follow.  Remember this passage?

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The Bible constantly talks about conflicting desires, self-control, and the putting off of fleshly desires and things that are wrong for us and putting on that which is profitable, healthy, and God-glorifying.

That has to be the thought with food and sweets and anything (even salty things – which is another weakness of mine) that threatens to push itself into a place of too high of a priority in our lives.

A person who puts food at too much of a priority will often over-eat and might wrestle with being over-weight.  (Check out this story! Woman Wants to Be 1000 1bs!!!) OR… a person might struggle with image so much that they become anorexic or bulimic in order to maintain a certain image (You call this beauty??).  In either event, there is no self-control. 

So, my food-related discussion for today leaves me thinking about a few convicting thoughts:

• I’m thankful the sweet tooth that I have developed and the self-control I will learn as a result
• I’m purposing now to keep the Fruits of the Spirit on my mind, remembering that self-control is a fruit of walking with and dwelling in Christ
• I am purposing to think long-term about the affects of the food I eat (see yesterday’s article on that subject: Creativity and Satisfaction: Unleashing Foods from Assigned Meals) on my body and overall health
• If I’m not exhibiting self-control in the area of food, what other areas am I not showing self-control in?

On that thought, I finish my day thinking about what I’ve eaten for sure, but more importantly, dwelling on the thought of self-control and what eating and self-control can tell me about my walk with Christ.

How are you doing?  Where is your self-control in eating and what does that tell you about what needs to change in your actions but more importantly in your heart before the Lord?

Tune in next week for more Food-Filled Fridays!!!

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Strawberry Ice Cream Photo Credit: Suat Eman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net