What is the point?

I'll make it quick. The point is Isaiah 44. It is belonging. It is written on my heart, on my hand, I belong. He asked me, I said yes.

Not eating sugar, beginning last summer, was about a food addiction, about being healthier, about losing weight. Not eating sugar, not drinking coffee, beginning in November, was about saying yes to God about a Nazirite vow, a fasted lifestyle, about belonging. I believe God wants me to lose weight and to be healthy. I believe He wants me to look like I belong to Him. Because He loves me, He wants me to have self control, to be a good example for my children, to not have high blood pressure. But above all those things, He wants me to not be a slave to my appetite, instead to be devoted to Him.

The scale is not the point. Finding other ways to satisfy my appetite is not the point. Deciding not to have sugar, but to have a candy bar made with sugar alcohol when I need a fix completely misses the point. Grabbing a green tea latte when I'm feeling the need instead of drinking coffee is not really different for my spirit.

Living a fasted life means that I go to Him and fill my spirit with Him rather than anesthetizing my heart with my drug of choice: food.

I want, desperately, to belong to Him. To put in my mouth what my body genuinely needs, and to feed my spirit with what it genuinely needs. I love Him. I want to choose to fill my mind and spirit with His Word, my time with His presence. I want, I long, to be a worthy bride, valuing with my life that which is most valuable, calling nothing else fair unless it be His beauty, His face, His Word, His voice, His Name.

I am His. I want to live like I am His.

I heard a teaching last night by a guy name Paul Washer. Want your butt kicked hard? Look up Paul Washer on youtube. Whoa baby. He asked this question - if you want to know what you love, what do you think about? Well, I think a whole lot about food. What I'm eating, what I'm not eating, how many calories, that sort of thing.

Not that those are bad things to think about. But I am missing the point. He set me free so I can be free, not so I can be a different kind of slave. I am free from serving my appetite. I am free from serving my flesh. I am free to love Him best, free to worship Him only. I am free from needing that drug. I need Him. Good news: I have Him. Exceedingly, abundantly beyond what I can ask or ever even think. Without measure. That is the point.