www.wikihow.com noted the following: “Make a list of positive changes you want in your life., think about how much your life will improve once you’ve kicked the habit. Create a picture of your life post-addiction. How do you want it to look?
· Maybe you’ll feel a sense of freedom you haven’t had in years.
· You’ll have more time to spend on people, hobbies, and other pleasures.
· You’ll be able to save money again.
· You know you’re doing everything you can to stay healthy. You’ll feel immediate physical improvements.
· You’ll feel proud and confident again.
Emotions often lead back to indulgence. Anger often leads straight back into addiction for many people. One reason for this is because anger is often followed by depression. Depression for some people leads straight to food addiction. So it is important to develop a better understanding of anger. www.angermentor.com says “When angry consider yourself drunk. Make no decisions and take no action while angry. No exceptions! You will either regret it or it will have negative consequence for your life – 100% of the time. It never fails. Your mind is really that clouded. Your judgement is that impaired”.
Have a list of alternate activities and refer to that list when emotions upset you.
Joyce Meyer in her article Dealing with Anger…God’s Way, said
“Get to the Root of the Problem. Anger is caused by injustice, strife, impatience, jealousy, unmet needs, abuse and many other things.
Anger is the fruit of rotten roots. One of the primary roots of anger stems from the family. Angry people come from angry families because they learn from their role models and carry on the same behavior in their own lives, eventually passing it on to their children.
Other Roots of Anger Include… Abuse of any kind—sexual, physical, verbal, emotional or mental abuse almost always leads to anger. They’re all injustices, which eventually leave the abused feeling helpless and angry. Abuse of any kind can’t be ignored. We must deal with it and process it before we can get free of it.
Unmet needs—can also produce anger. We all have needs that can and should be met by those closest to us; however, they don’t know and understand our needs unless we communicate with them. But even then they may sometimes fail to meet our needs. Therefore, the answer is to go to God with our needs and not to other people.
Face the Truth… And Choose Your Pain If you want the great and mighty things God has for you, you must get to the root of anger and deal with it. Get rid of the masks and face the things that happened in your life that made you the way you are today. Admit that you can’t change by yourself. Until the root is removed, it’ll continue to produce one bad fruit after another. Too often we spend our lives dealing with the bad fruit of our behavior, but we never dig deep enough to get to the root of the problem. Actually, when we’re faced with anger, we must choose our pain.
Digging deep to take care of the bad root is painful, but it’s the only lasting way to take care of the problem. We can either suffer positively, doing what’s right or we can go with the devil’s
plan. You must decide if you want the pain that will take you into a new realm of glory or to keep your same old pain and try to hide it while it’s rotting inside you.
Peter tells us to be well-balanced and temperate, withstanding the devil at his onset (see
1 Peter 5:8-9). When you begin to feel anger, it’s the perfect time to exercise the fruit of self-control. You may have a good reason to be angry, but don’t use it as an excuse to stay that way. Instead of denying or justifying it, ask God to help you deal with it in a positive way.
Is all anger sin? No, but some of it is. Even God Himself has righteous anger against sin, injustice, rebellion and pettiness. Anger sometimes serves a useful purpose, so it isn’t necessarily always a sin.
Ephesians 4:26-27 tells us,
When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down. Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him]. Refuse to give the devil any opportunity to get a foothold in your life through anger.
All anger, regardless of its cause, has the same effect on our lives. It upsets us, causing us to feel pressure. Keeping anger locked inside and pretending it doesn’t exist can even be dangerous to our health. Most of the time we’re only hurting ourselves, and the person who angered us isn’t even aware of it. So we must take responsibility for our anger and learn to deal with it. Process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure. I have been through some rough times in my life, and for many years those experiences caused me to feel miserable. I was so mad about the abuse in my childhood that it was making me bitter and hateful. I was angry with everybody, but one day God confronted me and said, “Joyce, are you going to let that make you bitter or better?” That got my attention, and I eventually had to find a positive way to process my anger. That was a place of new beginnings for me. When you face your anger and decide to deal with it God’s way, you can overcome it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be stable and walk in the fruit of the Spirit. We have the power to forgive those who do injustices in our lives and to love the unlovely.
When Satan makes you angry, remember that he’s trying to keep you from accomplishing the will of God in your life.
Overcome evil and anger by praying for those who hurt and abuse you. Forgive them and be a blessing to them. It may not be easy at first, but when you make the decision and stick with it, God will take care of the rest”.
Will Rogers said, “Whenever you fly into a rage, you seldom make a safe landing.” And he is right.
Proverbs 19:19 says, “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty.” We’re being told that almost every day. Doctors tell us that losing our temper consistently brings about high blood pressure, dryness of mouth, & a fast-beating heart. It could even bring pre-mature death.
A hot temper could also mean loss of family & friends. The penalties of anger are many.
So we need to recognize that we have a problem with anger. As long as we deny it, as long as we blame it on heritage or short-fuse or whatever we choose to blame it on, we’ll never improve.
Then we must confess our problem to God & ask for His help. “Lord, I’m beginning to lose my temper, & I’ve done it many times before. Please help me see what is causing it to happen, & then help me to overcome it.”
The Bible teaches that when the Holy Spirit guides our life, that one fruit of the spirit is self control. And if you have anger, you need to control it.
When we lack self control and lose our temper the first result is “bitterness.” You begin to think about all the bad things people do & say to you, all the insults, all of the inconsiderate things that go on.
Then Paul says, “After bitterness comes rage & anger.” “Rage” is bitterness boiling & bubbling inside of you. And “anger” is rage being expressed. It is no longer just inside you. Now you begin to kick the cat, & hit the wall. Now you begin to say all kinds of things, until finally it becomes “brawling,” which means “shouting loudly,” & “slander” or “insults.”
And the end result of it all, Paul says, is “malice.” And “malice” means that you really desire to harm. That’s why we’re always reading about someone shooting his wife & turning the gun on himself. Because the ultimate end of stubborn anger is malice.
Paul said, “Here is the way to get rid of stubborn anger. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” Vs. 32 says, “Be kind & compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
The Bible says …we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12 KJV). There is Holy anger and there is sinful anger. If you have fiddled around with sin, anger is often something that attaches itself to you. Sure someone may cause it to erupt, but it is in you and you need to get it out of you.
Key Point #1 Pray every morning and evening: Jesus please take this anger out of me. If you have a serious problem pray it ten times or thirty times a day. Life is way better without anger and the baggage anger brings with it.
There a multitude of reasons that people have a food addiction. There are many reasons that you started this habit but let us first look at two reasons why many people can’t quit.
food addiction is a difficult habit for two types of people. The first group are people who lack the self discipline to change. The latter group are people who see the destruction unhealthy habits cause them but when push comes to shove they just don’t care enough to change. Both groups are well aware that indulgence has messed up their lives but neither group have the tools they need to overcome their inner demons.
A few people fit perfectly in the first group and some people are examples of subjects from the “we just don’t care group.” But many people are a combination of the two groups. To successfully overcome a weight problem you need to analyze which group you are more a part of.
Take a solid twenty minutes or more to think about why you are so completely hooked on food/sugar.
What percentage would you give the “I just lack the discipline” part of the equation. _______
What percentage would you give the “I just don’t care” part? _______
Knowing what your reason for not being able to quit is very important because if you ignore why you can’t quit you may very well ignore the exact advice you need the most. For example if you know that your bigger problem is that you just don’t care. Then I will tell you to pay special attention when I recommend a book to inspire you. My teaching you to say three times a day that “indulgence will cause me pain” will not work for you because you just don’t care. But if you can read a great book that will inspire to care a little more you can start to make progress.
Today I watched a show called Kingdom Connection. On my TV system it is on at 9:00 AM on sunday morning. He had a guest Christine Caine on the show who runs a ministry to try to stop human trafficing. In 2013 there are an estimated 27 million people who are slaves. Many of these slaves are sold as sex slaves.
His guest told a dramatic story about how she rescued Three woman who were sex slaves in Turkey. The woman had been in slavery for over a year. When they were dramatically rescued one of the woman asked Christine “why are you here” Christine answered saying “There is a God in heaven who loves you and He has redeemed my life and He wants to help you”. She then told her about the love of Jesus and how He had changed her life.
The girl was crying, but then she asked Christine “if what you tell me about your God is true, why didn’t you come sooner”. This question had a dramatic impact on Christine. If the story of Jesus is true: how that He loves us, died for us, saves us, has mercy on us. If it is true, why are we not going sooner to help people in need.
This is why we read the Bible every day. This is why we read the purpose driven life and pray aggressively about finding our purpose. We need to start very soon – helping people in need.
When Christine was asked what can we do. The first thing she said was that we can pray for their ministry. You can pray every day for her ministry, or 3 times a day, or 5 times a day. You can do the same for my ministry.
You can watch the full interview with Christine Caine at www.jentenzenfranklin.org
You can give to her ministry and recieve a 4 DVD set called revival (for a gift of any amount) by calling Jentezen Franklin ministries at 800-951-7646 (call them to see if this offer still applies). I watch Jentezen every Sunday and I think he is the real deal. I know that he does not take any part of the proceeds, 100% goes to helping the people.
Read Psalms 2
9. Checklist for avoiding relapse: Realize that you have become stronger now. Your life may spin out of control for a bit and you start to slip up. You have crossed the line you know you should not cross. We know people who just can’t have that one cookie, it leads to others. But you were not trying to set loose boundaries, you just honestly screwed up. You are now strong enough to stop and avoid destruction. Tell yourself and God “I am not trying to set loose boundaries, I am going to stop this binge right now and fulfill my purpose and find joy”. You are stronger now!
9. Pray: Father help me to increase my toughness to be able to say no to my habit.
If this article has helped you, share it with your friends. Share buttons are below the index.
Thank you for reading day 18 of this program on how to get rid of bad eating habits.
Index
Day 1: Cravings
Day 2: Develop positive addictions
Day 3: Start an overcoming addiction journal
Day 4: Controlling emotions
Day 5: Don’t sell your pleasure backwords
Day 6: With the Spirit we have liberty
Day 7: You have some self control
Day 8: Have coping statements
Day 9: Living water
Day 10: Learning from Genesis
Day 11: Consequences in Genesis
Day 12: Self control
Day 13: What leads to setbacks
Day 14: Learn toughness and learn how prayer helps with addiction
Day 15: What prayers does God answer
Day 16: Set goals
Day 17: Plan out what you will eat for the day
