Quest for Freedom

If you are here reading this it's for 1 of two reasons. You are either "just curious" or you are searching for freedom yourself. Whatever the reason, it is my hope that your time spent here will somehow lift you & encourage you to soar to new heights and that whatever demon it is you are battling, you will find the courage & strength to pick up your cross daily & press on to reach the goal & win the prize.

Jesus Christ has given us freedom in Him, but so many of us just choose not to walk in it. It is a free gift, yet for so many of us we have lived in slavery to our sin for so long we continue to walk in the shackles we are in. Galatians 5:1 says: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." Considering that, freedom is never really free, is it? We have to fight for it, sometimes daily. We have to "stand firm" and sometimes it's easier said than done. The sin to which we yield becomes our master. For me, it's the sin of gluttony. It is a sin I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. It entered in at some point as a child, and I have not yet found complete freedom from it. I believe it is a demonic attachment, one of which could have entered at any point in my childhood, since my childhood was filled with many wounds...physical, and emotional. I believe that it is through such wounds, that a demon can attach itself to you. So I like to consider gluttony not only a sin, but a demon. It makes it that much more real to me, and enables me to imagine something existent. It is easier to fight something existent than something nonexistent, and if I believe that demons exist (and I do) than I believe that we fight against them daily for the freedom that we already have in Christ.
Ephesians 6:12 says, "For 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" Make no mistake friends, we are at war with the enemy.
The hardest part about fighting this war is that it rages within us. I have fought many sins of the flesh, but the one I have not yet conquered is that sin of gluttony. It is a thorn in my flesh, and it is something I battle with constantly. There is such a struggle within because we are creatures of flesh, yet we have a new Spirit. The Spirit & the flesh battle within us, but the one one we feed the most is the one that will gain the victory on any given day. In Romans 8, Paul talks in great detail about the Spirit vs the flesh. When we seek God, and read His Word, and grow closer to Him, we gain such a great foothold over our enemy. But when we are not in the Word, and we allow our feet to slip into the world, we lose our standing, and therefore give the enemy a tremendous foothold over us. It is so important to understand your enemy. You must know your enemy in order to conquer him. I fight the demon of gluttony. How well I understand that demon. And though I know all the why's & hows, here I sit, fatter than ever, and doing little or nothing about it. I'm not depressed over it , but I am disappointed in myself for allowing it to consume me so. I am no longer beating myself up over letting myself get to this place, but I'm not fighting it either. At this point, however, it's gone beyond my looks. Even though I cringe these days when I look in the mirror, it's the gasping for breath I do when I walk up the steps, and the lack of motivation I have every morning that keeps me aware that I desperately need to do something to rid myself of this demonic attachment. Though my body seems to find 3am a wonderful time to rise these days, it's not helping me at all to get anything extra done. I keep telling myself to take this time to go back to my yoga and meditation, but I'd rather sit on this stinking computer than do anything physical these days. I have 2 great dogs that could use a good walk, but I just look at the leashes & say, "Maybe tomorrow". Of course, tomorrow never comes. I love to train them & work with them, and I want to be a good dog cart driver, but here sit the dogs & there sits the cart & my physical condition prevents the twain from meeting! I keep telling myself that dressing nice when going out somewhere will make me more motivated, but the minute I go out the door, I become fully aware of how fat I am & I go back & grab myself something to eat to take with me into the car.
I've done some serious battle with this demon before, and I've won. But the victory was short lived, unfortunately, because the minute I took my eyes off the fight he snuck back in and attacked me with a bigger army. Jesus said that when a demon leaves a person, it likes to come back with 7 more even worse demons. I can't say if that is what happened to me, but I can tell you that after a 40 day water fast last year and a great taste of freedom, I did take my eyes off of the enemy, and he did gain a foothold over me. It has since been a challenge for me to fast for even 1 day. When the attack came, instead of fighting right back, I allowed myself to get comfortable and when I turned my back he hit me with both barrels. Every good soldier knows not to turn his back on his enemy. Apparently I was tired of being a soldier and just went back to my civilian clothes before my retirement was up. There is no retirement as long as we are living in this world. Not only did I turn my back, but I gave in to all future attacks, and now I'm a prisoner of war. How long will I stay in this prison cell I've created for myself before I pick up my sword & fight my way back out? I can't answer that. I only know how I feel today...right now...and after acknowledging my defeat in words, I find myself having a renewed desire to pick up my weapons & do something, however small, to chisel away at these bars. So off I go to spend some time in yoga & meditation. Perhaps today I will feel more the warrior I was destined to be.