"Crave" Week 6

Welcome to Week 6 friends!! Make sure to visit Crystal & Rebecca's pages, as well as link up at the bottom to join up.

Chapter 9: "But Exercise Makes Me Want to Cry"

Lysa opens up this chapter explaining her disdain for exercise-she even admits to praying for a husband who would motivate her to enjoy it more! She finally began running and the way she got through it was making it more of a spiritual journey than a physical one. Things like praying and quoting scriptures were getting her through the physically demanding and sometimes seemingly impossible runs. It was taking her from running out of her strength, which was very small and beginning to do it out of His strength.
I feel like with whatever struggle we might be facing, whether it be eating, exercise, alcohol, relationships, or anything else, we take it to a whole new level when we realize our need, our desperate need, to exchange our strength for God's. Because obviously we can't do it on our own right? Or we would have already and we wouldn't be struggling with it! However, I can't tell you how many times I will begin a week or even a new day with all the desire and all the ambition to do better today.
Eat better.
Exercise more.
Love my husband more.
Clean my house more.
Be more. Do more. More.
But I can guarantee you if I haven't begun any agenda by first asking God for His strength instead of my own, I'll be tired by noon and crying by 6 because I'm such a failure. Again.
It's true for any struggle. It's true for any day.

Chapter 10: "This Isn't Fair"

I have to confess something: at the beginning of this chapter when Lysa is explaining the struggle she faced on the cruise with her husband and whether or not to have dessert I was thinking...it's ok to splurge a little right? You are on vacation?
Well friends I felt like as I turned the first page of the chapter conviction was right around the corner ready to slap me in the face in the most lovingly way possible.
Anyone else?
"Our flesh buys right into Satan's lie that it's not fair for things to be withheld from us." (101)
Instead of giving into the temptation for that dessert, she reached for God's strength. Now I'm not suggesting that dessert wasn't delicious, but it got me thinking, wasn't that strength and comfort she received from the Lord better?
"Weakness is hard, but it doesn't have to mean defeat. It is my opportunity to experience God's power firsthand." (103)
Which makes you see the weakness differently right? Instead of this hardship we're enduring and trying to fight through we could see it as a blessing as a means to draw nearer to our God.
I'll take that over dessert any day.