#Beneficial

The nice thing about Thursday's Blog Hop with Proverbs 31 Online Bible Study is ... there are 4 topics to choose from. I always think "I'll go with ____" and then change my mind last minute!

When you think of "beneficial", what comes to mind?  What images does it project on the movie screen set up in the back of your brain?  Does it conjure the thought "What do I get out of doing this?"  What? That sounds selfish doesn't it? Well ... that's okay!  Know why? God wants us to benefit from Him being our Daddy!

Beneficial means "producing good or helpful results" OR try this one on for size! "receiving or entitling one to receive advantage, use, or benefit"

Here's what I'm learning.  Because of who I am in Christ, I receive an advantage from God to do THIS life!  That "advantage" is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the "ace up my sleeve", "the 8-ball in the corner pocket", "the secret ingredient of the family recipe".  The Holy Spirit is about "producing good" fruit in me and a slice of that fruit is self-control (Galatians 5).

On Sunday, I lost a lot of weight.  I was on my treadmill, listening to my iPod.  I'd raise the incline, lower the incline. Speed up, slow down.  The tunes landed on "White Flag" by Chris Tomlin.  As I listened to the song and huffed along ("huffing" not "singing"), I found that I had cranked the treadmill up to 4.5 (speed).  At 3.8, I'm at a very fast walk or jog, 4.0 my short legs have a hard time keeping up so I have to move them in a running fashion. I'm at 4.5 changing the words to personalize the song "I raise my white flag, I surrender all to You, all to You. I raise my white flag this war with food is over ... I'm tired of fighting and it winning .. It's over, over". I was stomping my foot down and I think my treadmill thought I was going to kill it!  In that moment, it was like the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders and I heard a Voice tell me to cut the speed down a bit.  The Voice I know full well because I have heard this Voice speak in my heart many a time over the last 10 years ... that nudge, that push from the Holy Spirit.  For the first time in years, I feel free!  For the first time in years, I do not feel trapped by food!

Self-control / Self-discipline, whatever you want to call it is 1) A slice of the fruit of the Holy Spirit and 2) It's only beneficial if I choose to do it.  Self-discipline is embracing the boundaries God is setting up for me and not seeing them as a bunch of rules to keep me from enjoying His delicious gifts BUT seeing them as beneficial to me.  Boundaries to be more aware of what I'm eating, how much I'm eating, when I'm eating.  Boundaries to say "no" to certain activities that rob me of not just exercising my body but that rob me of exercising my spirit ... those quiet alone time moments at the feet of Jesus!

God doesn't want to starve us of good things. And I think the best way to see following God's ways are beneficial for us is to end this little blog with His Words of Truth ...

 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10 (NIV)

For He satisfies the thirsty
    and fills the hungry with good things. Psalm 107:9 (NIV)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)