Wednesday's Weigh in #4

Wednesday. . . . it comes around every week. . . and each Wednesday, I have the time to look back and reflect on my week.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Where I've been, where I should have been, and where I desperately need to be.

They are good days - Wednesdays.  Days that I can see the positive week past, yet start over to renew my resolve to do better on the things that went badly.  For me here in my home, Wednesdays are a day of calm.  No teaching until later in the day.  Generally a day to do and plan as I please.  That's not to say they aren't full, but generally a stress free day.

But as i look back, I am so easily taken with the failures.  I so easily see the miss - steps.  The miss-takes.  The miss-erable failures.  And believe me, it's easy to do that.  In some respects, it's easier to do that than it is to focus on the good things that happened.  Why is it easier to believe Satan's lies than it is to believe the truth of God?  I guess that is our fallen nature.  That is what happens when our ears aren't tuned to God.  It happens when we allow ourselves to be lured by the serpent.  It happens when we focus on ourselves, instead of our creator.

Today I dreaded stepping on the scale and weighing in.  My week - was dreadful.  Mistakes made.  Harsh words spoken.  Unforgiving heart.  Walls built back up. 

As for my physical journey, well that too seemed to falter badly.  Exercise got put off one too many days.  Too many sweets needing to be baked. . . . and ultimately sampled.  Too many unhealthy choices over the course of the week.  I disappointed myself.  I let my guard down.  I gave in to the temptations around me.

So, today.  With another clean Wednesday slate, I sit here and have a choice to make.  Do I let the disappointments from last week, weigh me down and stain the future of this week?  Or am I going to take hold of this clean start and forge ahead with new resolve to do better this week?  A choice so seemingly easy, yet difficult.  Truth or lies?  What am I going to believe? 

Why does it always seem to be a difficult thing to focus on the positive? On God's truth?  Why do I keep focusing inward instead of upward to Him?  Oh, if I could only learn that lesson.  If only I could see me how HE sees me.  How He MADE me!!!

And yet, as I stepped on the scale today, I could hardly believe my eyes.  With all the failures of the previous week, with all the emotional struggles I'd battled with, it was as though God was telling me, you need to focus on the truth.  Not lies.  Focus on ME, not the deceiver.  See?  While he is getting you to focus on the negative, I am the Positive.  I am the Truth.  And with all the negativity, with all the lies that Satan tried to throw my way - there it was.  The truth.  Despite my week of "failures", I had shed another two pounds.  (Believe me!  I got off the scale several times to make sure there was not something wrong!!)  It was as if God was telling me, "See?  It is all just lies.  You are not a failure.  Focus on me.  I am the Truth." 

Psalm 139 (The Message)


God, investigate my life;
    get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
    I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
    before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
    then up ahead and you’re there, too—
    your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
    I can’t take it all in!

^7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
    to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
    If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
    to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
    you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
    At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
    night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day.

^17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
    God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
    And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
    all the men and women who belittle you, God,
    infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
    see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
    Your enemies are my enemies!

^23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
    find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
    get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
    then guide me on the road to eternal life.