I’ve been very open on this site and when I speak about my struggle with weight. I know I’ve shared some of this before…but let me walk you through my story…and then tomorrow offer six things that I feel everyone can do in order to overcome weight issues.
In about the fourth grade I began stacking weight on like crazy! I would get home from school and go to my grandmother’s house—where she would have a meal ready for me (at 3:30!) I would then go home at around 5:30 or 6:00 and eat another complete meal. I didn’t know it then…but this was the beginning of allowing the abuse of food to having a stronghold in my life.
By the time I hit the sixth grade I had a size 36 waist! (In the 6th GRADE!!! This is what size of pants I wear now.) Around the 9th grade my dad became very concerned about me…so he took me to the doctor to get checked out. (I think the fact that we went shopping for pants and he had to buy me a size 50 really freaked him out!)
I weighed in close to 300…and I remember being told by the doctor that if I didn’t lose weight he thought I was in serious trouble because the fat inside of me was in danger of taking over and shutting down my liver.
SO…I lost weight…a lot of it. In fact, I went from 300 to 215 and from a size 50 to a 36! (I did this in a time period of about a year and a half.)
BUT…then I hit college! (Did I just hear a groan?) We’ve all heard of the freshmen fifteen…well, it didn’t stop with my freshmen year! In college I ate like crazy. Seriously, as I look back food was pretty much my god. By the time I graduated in 1994 (was it THAT long ago) I was pushing 270, in a size 40 pants & needed to probably go to a 42 or 44. (But, like a lot of men, I refused…I just kept pushing them down until I had a serious belly overhang!)
I was FAT & in ministry! (Like I blogged about yesterday…
76% of pastors are either overweight or obese!) And when I began seminary…the eating increased like crazy.
Then the Holy Spirit hit me in the face like a TON of bricks!
I was sitting in class one night with all of the pastors who were attending (it was a one day a week deal) and they were all going off on the people in their church that smoked, drank and cussed. It was actually getting pretty brutal as these men slammed the people in their church who had “issues.”
Then a dude named Derek in the back stood up and said, “Guys, I know this isn’t going to make me popular, but…I think you’re being hypocritical. You are sitting here talking about the people in our church with problems when most of us are overweight, fat if you will. And Scripture speaks against that but none of us will because it would get too personal!”
Silence! Seriously, you could’ve heard a cricket break wind!
Some of the men began to grumble and say, “Who in the heck does he think he is?”
However, the Holy Spirit used Derek’s comment to SLAM me! God clearly spoke to me heart that night and told me that food was my god…that I loved it more than Him and my love for eating and my lack of exercise was a horrible way to be the best steward of the body He had given to me.
So, on the way home that night me & the guys I was riding with stopped at a convenient store/McDonalds where we usually loaded up on sweets & such…but…that night I made a decision that everything was changing…so I ordered a diet coke.
Seriously, I made the decision that night…and haven’t looked back. It took me a lot of time…but I lost back down to a 36 in the waist again and am right now around 220-225.
Folks, let me as honest as I know how here—there isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking about my weight. I wrestle with this more than anyone would ever know. Yes, I talk about food a lot in my sermons…but…I have to be SO careful! I have the metabolic rate that is slower than Congress! I exercise like crazy…and I really am careful about the things that I eat. (Although I am not obsessive. I do enjoy desserts…but it took me awhile to get there. And I don’t think you need to commit to a life of eating bean sprouts and spinach!)
One of the things that I know about overweight and obese people is this—you are not happy living the way that you are. You dream about change. You are miserable. And no matter how many times you say, “This is how God made me,” you know you are lying. God didn’t shove Twinkies down your throat. Don’t put that on Him!
BUT…the one thing I do know about you is this…you CAN change. Jesus Christ IN YOU gives you the power to overcome anything, even weight issues. Jesus in me has made all of the difference, both in this life and the next…and He can and will do the same for you.
Tomorrow I will give six steps I think anyone can take in this area and start on the road to a better and more healthy life.