Food 4 Thot Friday

Hey there!  Hope this post finds you doing well and your New Year off to a great start!

Many of us begin the New Year with a refreshed desire to make some changes to our lives...some call these changes Resolutions...others My Gift to Jesus...and some of us will just call our plans a Do-Over.

Most of us girls, as we flip open a new calendar, desire to shed some unwanted weight.  I am one of those girls.  I have come to realize that reducing the poundage on my body is a three part process. It's more than restricting my diet and buffeting my body with exercise.  To feel good...to be at my best weight...to have optimal health I need to engage my Spirit, Soul and Body for success.  Which, when you think about it, makes total sense.  We are comprised of all three parts and all three parts need to work together in harmony to not only achieve this desired goal but also to maintain it.

Food 4 Thot will help with this.  If you are not in need of a more fit body and have chosen something else to focus on in this new year this regular Friday post will help you too!  Almost every slice of Bible served here can be applied to whatever you might be working on.

First off, here are a few tidbits about this weekly post...

Food 4 Thot ~ as a Title...1) I had a group of friends meeting in my home a while back for this purpose and when I would text them info about the group I was too lazy type all the words out correctly on my 'dumb' phone so I would abbreviate this way...it stuck. 2) It comes from Romans 12:1-2a, "Therefore I urge you...sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."  This post will give us a portion of God's Word every week to help us renew our minds...and thus transform our bodies.

Food 4 Thot ~ as a Post...1) This will be just 1 tool that you can use to help you on your journey.  As stated above I will be giving us a verse to help us renew our thinking...and to focus our selves on Jesus during the process.  2) In addition I will try to include something helpful and encouraging, from a practical application stand point most weeks. 3) This post is purposefully designed to appear on Fridays. Don't know about you, but for me the weekend with it's lack of routine that the rest of the week usually provides can challenge my discipline.  So, having this post to get my 'head in the game' as I head into the weekend is helpful.

That about sums up what to expect here! 

To get us started this week our 1st bite of Scripture happens to be one of my fav's and is foundational to ApronStrings Ministries.

Oh, Taste and See that the LORD is Good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

Oh, fear the LORD all you saints, for those who fear Him have no lack!

The young lions suffer want and hunger;

but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Psalm 34:8-10

Those of you who read this week's Verse To Chew On may see a few similarities here. (Scroll down to read it if you didn't).

Here are a couple of things to think on as you look at this piece of the Bible...thoughts I had as I meditated on this and looked in my Commentaries.

*Taste & See = Try & Experience the beauty of God's Being (His Glory) and the bounty of His Grace
*Fear = An awe inspired worship of God which includes being conscience of my duty to Him in everything.
*As I taste & see, take refuge in and worship God my Father will feed me His comfort food and I will lack 'no good thing'.  If there is anything that I desire that God, in His infinite wisdom, denies me I can trust that He will give me the grace to be content without it!  This applies to life in general...and can surely fill in the lack on my plate if I am counting points or eliminating certain food groups as I work on being healthier!

Just for fun...and because I think it helps with getting Scripture into our lives, here's our passage in a couple of different translations...

 

Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—
how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to him.

Worship God if you want the best;
worship opens doors to all his goodness. Young lions on the prowl get hungry,
but God-seekers are full of God.

The Message

 

O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.

O fear the Lord, you His saints [revere and worship Him]! For there is no want to those who truly revere and worship Him with godly fear.

 The young lions lack food and suffer hunger, but they who seek (inquire of and require) the Lord [by right of their need and on the authority of His Word], none of them shall lack any beneficial thing.

Amplified

 

 

 

 

So that's that for this week.  I hope that this helps you in your plan.  Here's to a Healthy New Year for us all!

Serving Him and you,
~Michelle...ApronGirl

Gift or Resolution?

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas! 

 

Gifts were given...Gifts were received...and by now, Gifts have been returned or exchanged if they didn't 'fit'.

Any of you have an awkward Gift situation?  Awkward Gift situations can include receiving that 'thing' that we have no idea what we are going to do with.  Or an awkward Gift situation may be shopping for the person who has everything or who you have no idea what to buy for.  It's awkward when someone Gift's you when you have no gift for them...has that ever happened to you?

Did you leave anyone off your Gift list this year?  Anyone...anyone?

Some of us do so - inadvertently...we aren't thoughtless people...or people with Scrooge-like tendencies...we just get busy and forget someone...or we just never saw that Gift coming and wish we would have had one to reciprocate with.

Unfortunately, we sometimes forget the most Important Person when it comes to our Christmas gift giving...the Person who should be at the top of the list...the Person this holiday is all about to begin with.

Did you give Jesus a gift this Christmas?  It is His birthday we are celebrating and most of us do a good job of acknowledging that even in the hustle and bustle of this commercialized holiday...but how many of us are actually purposeful in Giving HIM what He wants for Christmas?

Now if you didn't give Jesus anything for Christmas yet don't panic...contrary to popular belief which is supported by a few faulty Christmas Carols...the Magi or Wise Men didn't show up with Jesus' first Christmas Gifts until He was closer to two years old.

Right now, during the brief lull between Christmas and the celebration of the New Year, is a great time to ask Jesus what He would like from you for Christmas!  In my home we have done this for years.  We start talking about, and praying about, what Jesus might want from each one of us beginning the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Being deliberate in this really helps to focus our attention, throughout the season, on what is really important.

After each of us have heard from the Lord we record our gift on a slip of paper and place it in specially designated boxes under the tree. These are the first gifts we open on Christmas morning...sharing with the rest of the family what we 'got' Jesus for Christmas.

Now I know it's too late to do that this year...but again it's not too late to ask and give Jesus what He really wants this year.

The good news is that this can take the place of a New Year's Resolution as well!  Almost every year Jesus has asked those in my home for a long term commitment...like taking better care of His temple (that would be my body), or praying for an unsaved friend, or being the one to make sure that a food donation is made to our church pantry each week for the needs of the community. 

I don't know about you but I'm not very good at keeping Resolutions...it seems like my good intentions and determination of will tend to wane before the end of the month.  This Gift to Jesus approach is much more successful for me though.  Due in whole to the fact that I don't give my Gift to Him under my own power.  Gift giving to Jesus becomes a catalyst to a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him as I seek the power of His Spirit to carry it out.

So if you haven't taken the time to ask Him what He wants this year take the next couple of days to prayerfully do so.  The answer may come immediately...there might be something that He's been hinting at for a while now.  Or it may come more slowly and you might have to be deliberate in making time to sit quietly at His feet to listen.

This year it took a while for me to figure out what He wanted from me...in fact it didn't all come together until Christmas Eve morning.  As I sat with Him I began to journal words and phrases that had been rolling around in my heart and mind over several weeks...as I asked Him what all of this meant I saw a common thread...and realized just what He wanted.  I am excited to see what will come of this as He and I work together in the New Year to bring it to pass!

I hope you have fun asking Jesus for His wish list...and that you enjoy the process of giving Him that special Gift!  If you want share here in the Comments or on the Facebook link what your Gift to Jesus is this year.  I'll be sharing mine in this week's Verse to Chew On.

Serving Him and you,
Michelle...ApronGirl