Amazing love..

The only reason you're alive is because you were made to be loved by God. If God didn't want you alive, your heart would stop instantly; you wouldn't even be breathing right now. God made you and wants you alive so He can love you and you can love Him back.

There's a myth that says I've got to clean up my act before I can come to God. "I've got to get it all together. There are a few things I've got to get in my life right first, and then I'll come to God." God says, "No, no! You don't have to clean up your act. Just bring it all to me. Bring me all your problems. I have the answer. I have all the answers." You don't wait. Jesus says, "Come as you are."

God is not asking you to make a promise you can't keep. God is asking you to believe a promise that only he can keep.

This is from Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotional today, and since it's Holy Thursday, I think it's a good time to reflect on this topic. I think so many of us think that we have to always be reaching for perfection or we think we have to live like God because he was perfect and we have it all wrong. First of all, perfection has been removed from my vocabulary because He is the only one that is perfect. It wasn't until treatment that I realized that perfectionist didn't mean perfect, it meant always thinking you can be perfect and reaching for it when you can't - it's completely impossible so you can let go of that one. I know in the realm of weight, this is something that many people strive for. If I can just lose these last 5 pounds, then I'll be happy. So does that mean, you only go to God when you're happy? Well, that wouldn't make sense because you know people just go to God and say, "Take this weight off me!" Now, there is a difference between telling God to take the weight off (let me know if you meet someone that works for) and letting God take it over.

When you think other people are judging you for that piece of cake you are eating when you think you could lose a couple of pounds, God isn't. He's just wanting you to reach your hand out and grab hold. I wouldn't be in recovery today if I hadn't accepted that I'm powerless over certain things that I use to numb me. I was telling someone yesterday - food can get me in a trance that is like a strait jacket I can't get out of. Whenever I get stuck in that, I go to God. We have to accept that controlling our weight is us being completely self-willed when we need to be God-willed. God just wants us to take care of ourselves from the inside and stop fixing our outside cause you know what? When you fix your insides (finding out why you are going to those substances), the outside miraculously starts to get better.

The best part is if you're thinking, I know God hates me right now because of what I've done to my body or how I've alienated someone - he is RIGHT there next to you, just waiting for you to turn to him. So you can stop resisting him...because like true love, he's with you through the good times and the bad. You just have to love him back by loving yourself....