All of us are broken-up dudes with lots of issues. Some of us have had to deal with hard-core
addictions to alcohol, pornography, drugs, emotional affairs, physical affairs,
adultery, struggling or broken marriages and the like. Everyone has a sin issue that has dogged us for
most of our lives. They come in all
different shapes and sizes, but the commonality is that they all lead to
death…and that is the path all of us were on before we utterly surrendered our
lives to Jesus.
God has brought each of us through horrible, dark times and
delivered us in different ways from a path of destruction. We really leave the agenda of this meeting up
to God. Sometimes he guides us to a book
that we all agree to study and discuss.
Sometimes it’s a sermon series on a podcast (we recently listened to
Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Dallas, TX, his series on Redemption –
awesome). Sometimes one or more of us
has something really heavy we need to put out on the table or confess to God
and to each other. This past week we
prayed for one of our guys who had just found out his uncle had committed
suicide. We all asked questions, offered
encouragement, cried with him and prayed for him and the family. This is the rich fellowship of Bullet Proof
Glass.
One of the things that most of us in our group continue to
struggle with is an unhealthy relationship with food. One of our guys has struggled most of his
life with it and has recently really been getting serious about how he eats and
exercises. He has asked us to hold him
accountable to his goals and to the new path God has laid out for him. Several of us find ourselves turning to food
for comfort when we are struggling with anxiety, fear, confusion or some other
emotional malady. For most us, we agree
that this has become yet another form of idolatry – we should be turning to God
with this pain instead of to food. My
wife and I have both been recently struggling with this issue as well. When we get down or tired or frustrated, one
of us will look over at the other and say, “Yogurtland?” There is usually very little resistance from
anyone at that point.
In our group meeting, we can laugh at each other’s stories
about eating entire (LARGE) bags of potato chips…after a full meal or an entire
quart of ice cream or three Big Macs in the drive-thru at McDonalds. Or eating three Snickers bars and then trying
to hide the wrappers so we don't have to listen to the blowback from
anyone. My contribution was the foolish
pride I took in my record 23.6 oz cup of yogurt and toppings at Yogurtland
(this is a GREAT recipe for heartburn when you eat it right before bedtime,
FYI!). It’s good that we can all laugh
about it within the group but the reality is, it’s not what God would have for
us…not to mention it is simply unhealthy.
So…now we are holding each other accountable in this season
of life as many of us bring this issue before the Lord and ask for his help. We all agreed, not under any duress, but
completely voluntarily, that we would each “weigh in” every Friday. Several of us have also downloaded a calorie
counter app that we use to log our food and exercise (MyFitnessPal). One of us keeps a written log each time we
weigh in and we measure our progress and pray for each other during the week.
This past Sunday afternoon, I went out to walk a four-mile
loop to get some exercise and I used the time to pray. So I’m walking along, telling God that I’m so
unsure of myself right now with the way things are going in my business and
work. My conversation with the Lord was
going something like this:
“God, I’m just so unsure of
myself right now. I don’t know what direction to
go in and I really feel lost. PLEASE give me some direction. I don’t want to choose my own path any
more. I want your path.
I want your best for me. I am
TOTALLY capable of carving out my own way and we both know how that has worked out in the past. Please don’t leave me like this. Please show me the right path to take, the right thing to pursue. I need to HEAR you, Lord.”
It’s easy for me during times like this to just feel like
God doesn’t hear me. Like I am totally
alone and that I am going to be left with no other choice than to determine my
own way – SO faithless. That’s what I
started feeling like right about then.
So I shifted gears and started
praying for the food issue.
“Lord, I pray for self control with
food. Help me with that."
Then I hear the Lord say, "Self-control is a fruit of
my Spirit"
"I know self-control is a fruit of your
Spirit in me. Fill me up with your Spirit. I want that fruit in my life. I want all of your fruit, Lord – love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.”
Then the Lord brings to mind the passage in John 15 about
the vine and the branches, Jesus speaking with his disciples…
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the
gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no
fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You
are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain
in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must
remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you
remain in me and I in you, you will bear
much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you
do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers;
such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you
remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be
done for you. This
is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
What I heard was, if I remain in him, I will bear that
fruit. Self-control and all of the other
fruit of the Spirit are just a result of me staying close to Jesus. I continued praying as I walked...
“God,
I want that fruit. PLEASE help my life
to bear that fruit. Help all of us bear
that fruit.” And I start naming each of the guys in my men’s group and I
pray the same for my wife, Celeste, also.
Then I hear that lie again – “He doesn’t even hear you. You are ALONE in this just like in everything
else.” And it FEELS true. I take a deep breath and just sigh.
About this time, I’m coming to the end of my walk and I
cross the street to head home and I hear a DIFFERENT voice. I look up and there's a man standing at the
end of his driveway...
“Have
you ever tried these LOQUATS?”
The voice surprised me.
It's an older gentleman, holding several pieces of round, orange fruit
out towards me.
“I’ve
never even HEARD of a LOQUAT. What the
heck is a LOQUAT? Is that like a
kumquat?” I respond.
“Kind
of, but different. It’s more like a
cross between a mango and an apricot.
Here, try one.”
He hands me one and takes a bite of one himself. “Some people like the skin. You can eat it too, but I usually peel it
off. You want to look for the ones that
are really deep orange. And look for the
bigger ones.” He starts pointing to
different fruits on the tree and picking one here and there and handing them to
me. I took a bite of one myself. He’s right - a combo of mango and apricot –
real juicy. "You have to eat around
the big, funny seeds inside," he says.
I like it. I hold my now-sticky hand out to shake his,
tell him my name and I ask him his…
“My name is John. Nice to meet you. You can feel free to grab some of these any
time you walk by if you’d like.”
We chatted for a few minutes and then I told John thank you
and said goodbye, walking away with a handful of large, orange LOQUATS – a
fruit I didn’t even know existed before I met him. I round the corner and started heading down
my street and suddenly I hear the Lord's voice again...
“That was
me."
I stop
and look down at the fruit in my hand.
"Just
sayin.”
The Lord doesn't do this a lot in my life, but each time he
does, it catches me TOTALLY by surprise.
Its almost frightening...at a deep, spiritual level. The God of the universe, intimately, personally reaching out to a broken, sinful man like me and speaking tenderly, gently to me deepest need. I broke into tears…of joy. It made perfect sense. Food, struggling, fear, not hearing his
voice, feeling alone, crying out for direction, hearing lies, begging him for FRUIT in my life.
He WON'T leave me like this for long. This is my Abba. He is NOT ignorant of my plight and he will NOT abandon me.
So God rescues me by introducing me to my neighbor, John
(same name as the book of John where he reminded me of the vine and the
branches story)…and introduces me to something new - a fruit I had never heard
of; the beautiful, ripe, juicy,
satisfying, mysterious fruit called a LOQUAT…a symbol of his love, faithfulness
and blessing.
And now its Monday - back at work. I'm moving forward in quiet thankfulness,
expecting for God to show up again and I'm asking him once more for fruitfulness in my life...looking for more Loquats...the ones with
the deep, orange color...the really big, juicy ones.
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