Yesterday I had a really cool revelation from the Lord as an answer to my prayer. I find that most of the time Jesus answers our prayers not by simply handing over what we asked for but in turn he gives us the opportunity to grow and achieve what we had prayed for. In this instance, I have been praying and asking the Lord to keep me out of temptation when I get home. I don’t want to fall into to any ways of giving in to temptation and living a way that is dishonoring to God. Before I even left for the race God began making those changes in my life. Now on the race, it has been set heavy on my heart that I want to go to college and be a light on my campus. I want to be a student walking with the Lord very evidently. I want to be an example that you don’t need to drink, smoke, party, and give into sinful desires in order to be satisfied. The Lord is calling me to this responsibility and I really truly want to live it out. As I said before – I have been praying that I would be made strong in my faith and resistant to temptation when I get home. Last night, we were given scripture and questions to meditate with God on. The topic was centered around being your true self in Christ. One of the questions had to do with compulsions. It stated: “Our compulsions reveal what we think we need most—those things we attach a disproportionate importance to.” Comically, my first thought went straight to food. It sounds silly, but it’s true. For me personally (and most of America), I place a weird amount of importance on the food I eat. A lot of the time I have the mentality that if food is in front of me, I should finish all of it, even if I’m not hungry. I’m so quick to accept food that is offered to me even if it is unhealthy or something I done even like that much. If you think about it, rejecting food is not something we do a lot – even when we have no real need for the food. Here in Haiti, we are offered very large meal sizes and pop a couple nights a week. I find myself taking large serving sizes and going back for seconds, not because I’m hungry, but because the food is there for my taking. Along the same lines, I usually don’t drink pop at home, but here I am very quick to open a bottle of sprite just because everyone else is. I don’t even enjoy pop that much, but the thought of skipping out on something that others seem to be liking makes me want to have one.
Bringing this back to my answer to prayer, I answered all the questions laying peacefully in my hammock under the clear Haitian stars with 5 minutes to spare. Of course with that free time, I had to pee (from the pop I had just drank). I put down my phone and went to the bathroom and then it hit me – right there sitting on the toilet seat. God spoke to me in food language. God is asking me not to fast food as a whole, but to control what I eat on the basis of wether it’s good for me or not. Let me explain, in 1 Corinthians 6:12 it says “everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”. In other words, “you can do anything, but not everything is good for you”. The Lord connected this scripture to food. He told me, “you can eat anything, but not everything is good for you to eat”. The root of this dosen’t stem from an issue with eating, but rather God used it as symbolism for something far greater. If I can’t decide what/ how much I eat on the basis of if it’s healthy for me or not, then how can I go home and control what I do based on if it is obedient to the Lord or not. This was my answer to prayer. It’s not receiving an immediate supernatural strength from God but rather an opportunity he is giving me to grow my own strength in Him. If the Lord can’t trust me with the small things, then how can he trust me with the big things? In doing this, God asked me to discern what to eat and how much based on if it’s healthy for me, not based on how bad my flesh wants it. This small act may seem odd and pointless, but this small act will turn into something bigger. Wether it’s temptation at home or college, being able to discern wether something is beneficial or not and being able to make a decision based on that is key. No decisions made because of how bad I want it or how much other people are doing it or anything else. Only seeking the wise council of the Lord to indulge in what He has to offer me, not what the world has to offer(:
