"Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10
I wasn't going to write another blog entry today, but I had just now finished reading my YouVersion devotional, "Live Fearless" by Sadie Robertson and right before that I had been watching a YouTube video about mistakes made on the keto diet, and between the two I was struck with a realization about myself and I had to write it down.
I am afraid. That is my issue.
I am a smoker. What does smoking have to do with fear?
I have tried many times to quit smoking. I quit with each of my pregnancies, but always within 3 to 6 months I started back up and I quit once for over a year when I was obsessively working out and losing weight. I quit once, just because, for over a year until there was a major issue going on in our lives that I couldn't handle.
I have failed, over and over and over again, and I am ashamed of that failure. I have failed. It's that simple.
Once I made the decision to quit smoking for spiritual reasons, quitting became even harder. Now that I have decided to live a healthier lifestyle and fight my diabetes with food doing keto, I know even more now that I need to quit smoking.
I have prayed and prayed about this issue for years. Time and time again I thought that I had given it over to God, or I begged him to remove the desire from me. The more that I pray about it, the harder it gets to quit, and the more I feel like a failure.
What does this have to do with fear, you ask? I am afraid to quit because I know it's going to be uncomfortable. I have terrible withdrawal symptoms, it hurts, I become exhausted and cranky and sick and I don't look forward to it at all, so I admit, I'm afraid of the withdrawal.
Also, I'm afraid to fail again not only because it's, well, failure, but because failure brings shame, and shame can devour me. Over the years whenever I quit I would always say that I would never start again, and then something would happen that I wouldn't be able to handle emotionally or mentally and I would turn back to my old friends who made me feel better, (even though they are stabbing me in the back with their friendship).
I am afraid of what I will do without smoking. How will I handle stress, or anger, or loneliness or fear? Gulp.
I love my Jesus, I want to follow Him and depend on Him. He is supposed to be enough for me.
I'm scared that He is not.
The YouTube video I was watching was talking about common mistakes people make on keto, and one of those mistakes was not having accountability. They went on to say tell the world, make it known, have people help you and hold you accountable.
Then I start watching Sadie Robertson's YouTube video for my nightly devotion on living fearlessly, and she is talking about how it's not okay to let people live in fear. That you have to call them out and cover them with prayer and scripture.
And when I started to read, the first line of the devotional said, "Are you torn right now because you really want to do something, but you're afraid?" Gulp.
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
In the next paragraph she challenges us to say yes to whatever we are currently saying no to, to not let fear make you say no when God is leading you to say yes.
The reason I can't quit smoking is not my lack of faith in God, it's not my lack of wanting or trying to be obedient, it's because I'm afraid. Light bulb moment.
The fact that I am writing this, makes me even more afraid, because I'm not only asking you to cover me in prayer, I'm asking for you to call me out and to hold me accountable. That's a scary thing! But, I want to be healthy, I want to have my body be the temple that God made it to be, and I want to be even more faithful in my walk with Him without anything to separate us, so I NEED Him to be enough for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment