F is for Freedom: Addiction vs. Nutrition
We began talking here, about finding freedom from an addiction to food. The battle is really the same, no matter what the particular lust, so we talked about the ANTHEM way of battling temptation and the resolve of Locking of the Lawnmower if there’s a particular item which causes us harm. Today I’d love to share one more little tidbit that helped me immensely in my walk away from frustration and into freedom.
Addiction vs. Nutrition
There are two basic ways to approach the issue of food. It finally became clear that part of my problem was only addressing the issue by one or the other of these approaches rather than by both. Both must be addressed. Here’s what I mean:
Years ago I read the book Weigh Down by Gwen Shamblin. This book has sold more than million copies, with good reason. She very rightly addresses the issue of diet and weight loss from the perspective of addiction, that is that we try to fill a spiritual void with physical food. Her entire philosophy can be simmered down to this:
- Eat food when you are physically hungry (stomach growling)
- Eat spiritual food when you are spiritually hungry (lonely, needy, tired, weary, sad)
Absolutely. In my opinion, she is spot on. And this simple truth seriously changed my life. The simple differentiation between spiritual hunger and physical hunger is huge. As Beth Moore says,
Every excess is a sign of emptiness.
If that’s not the most profoundly true statement I don’t know what is. Every time we battle with an excess we can be sure there is some emptiness in our heart. Every time. So first we must address the issue of addiction. (Filling our hearts with a substance rather than Christ.) Books that deal with nutrition and not addiction are missing the point entirely.
However, Shamblin’s book makes a slight misstep in that she enthusiastically maintains that it makes NO difference whatsoever WHAT you eat. The only thing that matters is when (at true hunger). She justifies this by quoting New Testament scriptures that show that all foods are clean and that only what comes out of a man makes him unclean.
I totally agree. Christ made all things clean. What we eat does not make us more spiritual or unspiritual.
But, it can help us on the road to wholeness.
For me, the true freedom came through addressing both important issues. In the Old Testament the reason that God gave certain dietary guidelines was that God wanted to communicate what was good for people! Just as He told people not to sin because it would cause them harm, He advised them not to eat animals with cloven hoof (i.e. pigs) because, quite frankly, it’d probably give them a heart attack! We don’t have to follow the clean and unclean Old Testament statutes, but we are wise to consider that there must have been something behind God’s Words or else He wouldn’t have spoken them. Make sense?
The key is in addressing both.
If we only address nutrition, we can be super-healthy-diet-freaks and still be overweight and living in bondage because we haven’t dealt with the spiritual food/physical food issue of addiction.
If we only address addiction, we can get skinny to be sure, but we still may not be walking in the wholeness and health God intended for us. I’ve been there. I was skinny, to be sure, but I battled headaches and PMS and fatigue and all sorts of things that accompany poor nutrition.
Again, friends, certainly not claiming I do this perfectly or have this all figured out. But on my own journey it has been the addressing both addiction and nutrition which has brought true freedom to my life. Doesn’t it always seem to be the enemy’s plan to get us falling off to one extreme or the other? So often all we need is a balanced approach.
Thanks so much for reading.