For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. (Psalm 107:9)
Like many people, I began 2022 with a resolution to lose weight and be healthier from the inside out. I prayed, I researched, and settled on The Daniel Plan. Not the fast, but the 30- day meal plan. My husband joined me, and together we read our chapters, made goals, logged our food and waited. By Day 6, my morning devotion/journal entry started with: “I am already struggling…a lot. I want easy, fun food. I don’t want the boring, healthy stuff.”
Why did the world have to make “things” that aren’t really food taste so good? Was there a shortage of actual food, so that’s why people began creating food-like substances? I don’t understand why we have entire stores filled with food that isn’t actually food. The Daniel Plan book has a quote about shopping: If it was grown on a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, leave it on the shelf.
I realized that my previous relationship with food was to eat what I wanted rather than what I needed. There are so many things we “feed” our bodies that are based on want rather than need. I asked God to take the want of what is unhealthy away from me and replace it with only the desire for what is good and what is actually beneficial to me.
I’d love to say that while doing the Daniel Plan, I lost a lot of weight and no longer struggle with my relationship with food, but I can’t say that. What I can report is that the plan forced me to confront my thought process about food. I began to really think about whether something was actually nutrition, versus just food-like substances that were primarily preservatives/chemicals.
I also went back to my daily morning prayer time. I had become lax in this decades-long practice in the previous six months or so. As I spent more time in the Word, I became stronger in my resolve to take better care of myself. I’m far from perfect, but, I am, definitely, depending more on pure nourishment- Biblically and nutritionally, these days.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)