Does It Take 'Will Power' or God's Power?

Most people following my blog have read my very first post called “Saved from the Road to Destruction”.  It’s my story of how God radically changed my wicked heart after many years of inner rebellion.  More than 4 years ago I finally humbled myself and gave up the intense struggle to control my own life and let my Creator have the preeminence for the plans He has created me for.  Although I’ve been enjoying awesome freedom, peace and joy in my life like never before, I’ve continued to struggle with one area that I honestly believed was simply a matter of ‘willpower’.  To win this battle, I thought it was up to me to exercise self control with a few prayers sprinkled in along the way for good measure.  I have believed the Enemy’s lies which have kept me locked up in an emotional prison where I’ve been tortured by this looming problem that would never go away.  Oh how I’m thankful for God’s patience concerning my sin, but earlier this summer I came to a breaking point that has further altered the course of my life.  I don’t enjoy sobbing in front of people, so I’m thankful that none of you reading this post can witness the tears that stream down my face as I pour my heart out to you today.  My passion is for others to learn from the lessons God is teaching me so you can avoid needless suffering.

I’ve heard that the power of sin lies in the secrecy of it, so it’s now my desire to be transparent about the strongholds that have kept me from totally being who God wants me to be.  I’ve been enslaved to the limitations of being overweight for about 12 years.  All along I was hoping that maybe I had some medical problem such as a hormonal issue or possibly my thyroid was out of balance.  If I just had some sort of medical condition that prohibited me from losing weight I could explain my tremendous struggle.  After being checked out by a few physicians I discovered that all my efforts had been in vain!  Test after test came back that proved I was not suffering from any condition that would keep me from losing weight.  I then moved on to the theory that I just needed to muster up enough will power to stick to a healthy eating plan to lose those stubborn pounds.  My goal for losing weight was not even so that I could wear 60% more of the clothes in my closet.  My motivation is much more important than having more variety in my wardrobe.

Lately I been witnessing the truth that James talks about in James 4:14, “…For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”  I’m now more desperate to live this life God’s given me to the fullest and accomplish whatever He has called me to do with NO regret.  I realize that I need to be healthier and be able to serve the Lord better and longer.  Please know that I am in no way even implying that anyone who is overweight like me is in sin because God makes us all different colors, shapes and sizes and we can all be used for His honor and glory regardless of any of those factors.  The key to success and blessing in this life is for each of us is to simply pray and ask God to reveal His will and for us to humble ourselves and be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in areas He wants us to change. None of us are perfect, but we must constantly be reaching for the goal of becoming more like Christ and be willing to allow God to transform us in every single area.

Let’s just say that I will always refer to the summer of 2013 as another instance when God lovingly ‘kicked me in the seat of my spiritual pants’.  I willingly admit that these strongholds regarding my weight were not easily loosened at first.  I’ve been blinded for 12 years by Satan’s lies to try to get me to hold onto the sin so I would never be free.  Our Enemy also works in any way he can to derail us from accomplishing ALL God has for us to do and therefore miss out on blessings He has for us.  The Holy Spirit began to get my attention through a book we’ve been going through in our adult Bible Study class which is called, “Follow Me “by David Platt.  As I listened to the video of the author who is also a Pastor, I became greatly convicted that it was about time I yielded my ‘will power’ to God’s ‘Almighty power’ that could truly change me to the core.  I learned that our God has created a craving in each of us and has designed those cravings we have to ONLY be fulfilled by Him.

As I listened to the author speak further, I thought about all of the cravings I’ve had over the years which were mostly concerning sugar, chocolate, and just comforting foods in general.  I finally realized that I had lots of cravings, but I was trying to fulfill those longings with food instead of God.  I’ve also learned through this study that we can “live for the fleeting pleasures of this world, OR we can live for the everlasting pleasures in God.  ONLY God is able to bring infinite joy and satisfaction in our life and anything other than God is simply a CHEAP imitation that ONLY brings guilt!”  If there were ever a “poster child” for suffering from a guilty soul, it would be me.  I could totally relate to these truths I was learning because for years I had tried to meet my emotional needs with food.  I’m a homeschooling mom of 5 and on those extra challenging stressful days, I felt I ‘deserved’ to satisfy my cravings for comfort food to help me cope; so shouldn’t I be able to treat myself all of the time?  Isn’t this the exact philosophy of the world as it teaches us through all of those chocolate and fast food commercials?  Let me clearly state the fact that chocolate or yummy food is NOT evil.  Those things are ONLY wrong when we substitute them in an effort to satisfy our cravings and comfort us when our needs are ONLY able to be truly satisfied by our Creator.  I’ve also learned that if we are delighting in anything other than our God and relying on the things of this world to satisfy our longings, then we are being blinded and will never experience true freedom and the joy that Christ intends for us. 

The day when the Holy Spirit began to convict me about this sin, I was visibly in turmoil all day as God continued to work on me.   I could not sleep well at all that night and kept praying for God to show me what I needed to do to get rid of the struggle inside me.  In the morning I woke up and got on my knees and read the verses in Psalm 51 where King David humbled himself and was broken before God over his sin of adultery.  As I sobbed I read these verses back to God:
(Psalms 51:1-4, 10-12)  “Have mercy on me, O God, According to Your loving kindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin.  I acknowledge my transgressions,  And my sin is ever before me.  Against You, You only have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight- that You may be found just when you speak, And blameless when You judge.”  (Vs. 10-12)  “Create in me a clean heart O God, And renew a right spirit within me.  Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the JOY of Your salvation, And uphold me with Your generous Spirit.”
I finally begged forgiveness from God for replacing the cravings HE has given me with cheap worldly imitations and asked for transformation in my heart and life.  I immediately felt the heavy weight of sin lifted off me and knew that the power of God had taken all of those longings away.  I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.”  No matter who we are or what we’ve done, and no matter how long we may have done it, when we confess our sin to God the slate is wiped completely clean by Him.  I am overjoyed to also note that since the heaviness of my “spiritual weight” was lifted off of me that day through confession of craving the wrong things, I have also lost almost 30 pounds of “physical weight”.  This is the beginning and I’m trusting in God’s power to enable me to lose the rest of the weight slowly over time.     

If you’re depending on your own “will power” to change any area of your life, I promise that you will not see permanent results.  As with all things, band aids do not heal, you must get to the “root” of the problem to find true and lasting victory.  Galatians 5:24 tells us, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”   We no longer have to be slaves to our sin as it states in Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”  Just as we would never expect a heart surgeon to operate on someone’s brain to fix a heart condition, we cannot expect to overcome a spiritual problem we’re struggling with by using the ‘will power’ of our mind.  God never designed our intellect to cleanse our heart from sin.  We must humbly yield our will to God’s, see our sin how God sees it and confess it for our heart condition to be healed.  Our solution lies in allowing God to transform our desires into His desires, and to crave Him instead of cheap imitations.

Do you have an area of your life where you know you have been craving, longing after or worshipping something other than God?  If you’re like me, you may have struggles you’ve dealt with for years and you’re still trying to muster up enough ‘will power’ to conquer them?  You may need to finally give up on your ‘will power’ and be yielded and willing to allow God’s ‘Almighty power’ to take control of your heart instead of those other things you’ve been craving.  It’s through humility of heart, brokenness of spirit and admission and confession of our wrong cravings that will allow us to draw on our God’s awesome power to overcome strongholds in our lives.  May you then experience to true joy that David talks about in Psalm 51:12, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me with Your generous Spirit.”   Only God can do that kind of transformation, no will power needed!