Epicenter: Ephesus (Exchanging Addiction for Hope) — Wednesday
Ephesians 4:1
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (NIV)
Before the Covid Pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt, I was at the height of my running career. I was running no less than eight miles a day, six days a week. I wasn’t a runner growing up, in fact I don’t think I have an athletic bone in my body. I took up running in my early 30s as part of my grand quest to change my life. I woke up every morning at 4:30am, met my running group in downtown Lexington and hit the pavement by 5:30am.
I started running at the encouragement of an old friend of mine. It had been a few years since she had seen me, and in that time I made a dramatic change in my life, a 200 pound change to be exact. It took me approximately three years but I persevered and dropped my weight from 350 to 150. I took it off the same way I put it on - 1 pound at a time. My weight skyrocketed in my late 20s when food became my coping mechanism! I was miserable and used food to comfort me.
I hated the feeling of not being able to buckle my seat belt on an airplane. I knew I had a problem when, at the age of 29, the elevators at work went out and I couldn’t walk the five flights of stairs to my office. The hardest part was that I didn’t have the mobility to play with my nephews and nieces.
In Philippians 3:18-19 we learn “…that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite…”. I was headed for destruction. My God was my appetite. However, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I began to live a life worthy of the calling I had received. (Ephesians 4:1) My desire changed from the immoral, impure and improper things of this world (Ephesians 5:3) to “one thing…that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (Psalm 27:4).
Wednesday’s Reflection
What do you have an appetite for? Do you desire “everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”? (1 John 2:16) Or, do you crave true satisfaction in Jesus who “declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’”? (John 6:35)