Roughly eight years ago I was really into ice cream. I must have eaten the equivalent of a half gallon every week. Then I'd try to kick the over-doing of sugar and was able to stick with it for a few months, and then got back into the ice cream. I was concerned about my sugar consumption because my brother Jim and my uncle Henry are both diabetic. So I was at higher risk.
At one point I prayed to Jesus for will power, and nothing changed for several weeks. But after staying with the prayer, I eventually "heard" this answer in silent prayer: "I will be your sweetness".
Quite enigmatic, eh? Poetic too. Trust me, that's not a phrase I would have thought of on my own.
What it meant to me was that if I spent more time in prayer about this with Jesus, that he would replace my desires for sugar with a desire for more sweet time with Him, and that I would find that tradeoff to be more than satisfactory compensation.
I'd like to say that I reacted exactly as he had offered, but I must admit that I was only able to give up ice cream for about another month. Then I got back into it. Over several see-saws like this I heard His phrase "I will be your sweetness" over and over. But when I was not responding adequately, the phrase stopped, and I continued to struggle with over-doing the ice cream.
Just three years ago my doctor did a blood sugar test and said that my blood sugar was getting too high. I slacked off the sugar a little bit, but not well enough. At the next annual physical exam, my doctor reported that I was on the verge of being diabetic, according to my blood sugar reading. It scared the crap out of me, and I cut out sugar out of fear.
I'm embarrassed to say that I paid more attention to fear more than love.
I also noticed that had I taken Jesus' advice years ago, I would probably have never reached the point of being tested as pre-diabetic. Even though He must have known that I would respond to fear, He did not use fear in his message. There was no "or else" communicated. Only God would be that patient. I'm learning that God is not a demanding boss. He offers with love, and hopes that we trust Him enough to respond to what He knows is the best overall big-picture option for us.
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