Being Known - Freedom from food addiction

Since writing the post below I have learned a lot about why I found freedom from food addiction. The post below talks about my identity as as a Christian being key to my finding freedom. But now I know that actually it is more specific than that.  It is coming to know more intimately my identity as a child of my Heavenly Father that I have found freedom. Jesus died on the cross to remove the barrier than stopped me having intimacy with Father God. So often I concentrate on Jesus and forget Father God.

I had an emptiness inside me that I tried to fill with food. But the hunger was never sated. It couldn't be because I wasn't really hungry for food. I was hungering for intimacy with Father God. 

And now I am learning to allow Father God to fill those empty spaces and the need to binge has gone. I had to let go of it but once I knew that love of Papa God I had the courage to do it. I knew the emptiness was being filled with something that would really fulfil me. 


To read more about my discovery of the Father Heart of God read my post, Discovering our Father's Heart on here or read the same post on More than Writers, (the blog of the Association of Christian Writers) for which I am regular contributor. 

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Ashamed of Jesus?

I've had this thought floating in and out of my mind for a couple of months now. Am I ashamed of Jesus? If so why? Why don't I talk about him more to others more than I do? I can dress it up in spiritual language to myself. For example "I am waiting for the Holy Spirit to prompt me" or "I don't want to proselytize so I will keep quiet". I am guessing many Christians are like me and have moments when they could have said something and don't do so. I am sure I am not the only one who comes up with excuses like these ones.

Maybe I am a coward because if I am honest I think I am more concerned about what people think of me than I am about what God thinks of me. There is at heart a fear of rejection by people, even if they are complete strangers!  Jesus has very firm words to say on this subject. I should take heed of them. 

The sculpture depicting the Holy Trinity at
Holy Trinity Church, Hounslow, Middlesex UK
(You have to look carefully  to see the dove
between the Father and the Son.)

Mark 8: 34 - 38

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

I want to start being bolder in letting folk know what I believe  And for those reading this who are not  Christians. Please don't worry that I am going to be a Bible basher taking every opportunity to tell people the  gospel in full whenever I can. I will be sensitive I hope but I do need to be firm as well in what I believe if the subject comes up. After all  the gospel I believe in is one of love, it is a gospel of how a God loved the world so much he sent his son to die for us. God does not condemn us, he accepts. He doesn't reject us. he longs to welcome us. 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16-17

Jesus came to us from heaven, God himself came as a vulnerable baby who would grow up to die for the sins of the world. The least I can do is tell folk that when it is appropriate.

Please Father, give me boldness when it is appropriate to speak about  you to those who need to hear about you love and grace. Amen