How to avoid the pitfalls of living in our own imaginations

“I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.” Psalms 119:101

I stepped on the scale and sighed. For months I tried this diet and that, but the stubborn ten pounds crept up to twenty. The doctors said it was just my age of life. My sweet husband told me I looked lovely and not to worry. With a six-foot-tall frame, my friends said the extra weight wasn’t noticeable. But it wasn’t any longer about how I looked. I felt yucky. It was harder to breathe. I had indigestion. I contemplated buying the next size bigger clothes but knew the problem would continue to expand.

For the last year, I saw a doctor every three months for autoimmune disease. Each visit she told me to eat healthy, exercise and rest, so my body can heal from the inside out. I returned home and follow those instructions to the best of my ability—and continued to be fatigued, in pain and gaining weight. I didn’t know why it didn’t work for me.

Until I was sorting through a stack of papers and found my notes from my last visit. I had written one line that changed the course of my life.

“Read Food by Dr. Mark Hyman.”

I wondered how I had missed that tidbit of information. I stopped what I was doing and ordered the book. When it came, I devoured it, light bulbs lighting up my brain. Everything made sense. Within weeks I was losing weight, in less pain and sleeping better.

What changed?

Before reading his book, I thought I knew how to eat healthy, exercise and rest. But when I read his book, he broke it down in a way that I understood. With the tools of both the how and the why I began making wiser lifestyle choices. Poor food choices were no longer a pit I inevitably tumbled into. I looked around to see who was speaking when I heard myself turning down Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. Who was I and where was the old me?

In Psalms 119:97-104 the author says he loves God’s Word so much he thinks about it all day. He didn’t start reading God’s Word because he loved it. His love for it grew as he read it. Our love for the Bible grows as we spend time in it. He goes on to say He says he has more understanding that all his teachers and the truths are sweeter than honey to him.

Our love for the Bible grows as we spend time in it.

Because he chose to think on things that are truthful instead of living in his own imaginations he developed a love for truth and God’s Word. That love gave him wisdom and understanding. Wisdom and understanding led to good life choices. We see that in our key verse, “I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.” (Psalms 119:101)

The scale always reflected my life choices, whether I realized it or not. By gaining the tools of what to do (understanding) and how to do it (wisdom) I began a journey of gaining my health back.

I’ve found this holds true in every other area of my life as well. Self-control doesn’t happen because try hard to make the right choices. Self-control happens by changing my thought processes, then my actions follow.