What’s in a Name? WEIGHTING on GOD
WEIGHT: That’s the whole reason you’ve found your way to this website! Right? You may think it’s a word that just relates to a number on a scale, but it is so much more. In the Bible, weight symbolizes struggles, responsibilities, and spiritual challenges, and each of these contexts gives us insight into how God wants to help us on our weight loss journey. Let’s explore these ideas…
Invitation to Rest: In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” In this passage, Jesus addresses the heaviness of carrying emotional burdens. Although you may be struggling with the burden of personal physical weight, the burden of shame and failure, and not being able to succeed despite all your efforts, can weigh heavily on your heart. Jesus invites you to bring that burden to him so that He can bring you into a place of rest and peace. He wants to teach you His way of tackling this issue. You will find it to be much more effective than ‘going on a diet,’ and it will, indeed, bring lightness to your soul.
Taking personal responsibility: In Galatians 6:5, we read that each one of us must carry our own load. This means that we are personally accountable. Even though there may be historical reasons why we began to eat emotionally and put on weight, blaming others for our present situation gets us nowhere. Once we accept responsibility, we can begin to move forward, not in our own strength, but in God’s, as He works mightily within us through the power of His Holy Spirit.
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Community Support: Galatians 6:2 exhorts us to bear one another’s burdens, so although we must take personal responsibility, we can nevertheless look to our brothers and sisters for empathy and encouragement. The Weighting on God course, when studied in a group, is an ideal way of experiencing this mutual support.
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A Play on Words WAITING and WEIGHTING
When I was still a young Christian, I would often hear fellow believers talking about ‘waiting on God,’ and I hadn’t a clue what it meant!
The beauty of a play on words is its ability to communicate more than one idea simultaneously. When God gave me the name, ‘Weighting on God’ for this ministry, the deep significance of this play on words (technically called a ‘homophone’) suddenly made complete sense. So let’s delve into the conventional meaning of the phrase, and I’ll show you just how appropriate this…
The moment we decide to commit our lives to God, the Holy Spirit begins to work within us, aligning us with His plans and purposes. It is so exciting to recognize that God has His hand on us, and that He wants to transform us and use us for His glory.
For this to happen, we must first submit to His Lordship, giving Him permission to work in our lives in whatever way He wants. This requires trust, obedience and patience. And it’s the need for patience, is it not, that most of us find so difficult? One reason for this is that we live in a fast-paced culture that constantly pursues instant gratification. No one wants to have to wait for anything. We want things to happen in
our time and according to our plans. We want it NOW!
Most diets play right into this desire for a quick fix. ‘Lose 20 lbs in two weeks’ is the extravagant claim we so often read, and that’s exactly what we want! It doesn’t matter how grueling or restrictive the diet plan is, for two weeks we can grit our teeth and bear it. Of course, the reality barely matches up with the claim, and we find that although we do lose a few pounds, we quickly put them back on as soon as we return to normality.
This is one of the reasons why, as a Christian, I am so cautious about taking weight loss drugs such as Mounjaro. The numbers seem to speak for themselves: you do lose a lot of weight, quite quickly in most cases, and it doesn’t seem to take any effort. So, what’s not to love? My concern is this: it seems so out of kilter with the way in which the Holy Spirit generally works in our lives. There is no development of character, no discipleship, no ‘working out of what God wants to work in us.’
If you want a quick fix, then Weighting on God is probably not for you! But if you want God to do a deep and lasting work, to bring about a paradigm shift in the way you use food, whereby old, destructive habits die, and you develop a Spirit-controlled appetite, then this is most definitely the way to go.
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God’s timetable is different from ours, and in due season we will see the results we so long for not just according to the numbers on the scales, but evidenced by the joy and freedom this Christ-centred and faith-filled approach brings. If you haven’t done so already, give it a try!