3 Ways to Curb Food Cravings and Go Deeper with God
How can food cravings keep you from going deeper with God, you might be asking?!
This is not about dieting or how to eat healthier. Not at all.
I am all for eating healthy and I know the value of keeping active and exercising.
This isn’t about how important it is to eat better or workout.
This is about how food cravings can actually keep you from going deeper with God.
I struggle with the urge to snack on things while I work on my laptop.
Healthy-ish things, you know.
Greek yogurt.
Luna bar after Luna bar.
Never soda or coffee for me. It makes no difference because it’s all about WHY you ate the WHOLE bar!
I could go on and on about the glucose imbalance that this creates but that is really not the reason for my indulgence . . . or yours if you do this with constant refills on coffee, soda or chocolate (did I say chocolate?)
Food Cravings are About Emptiness
Food cravings are about emptiness and not because you are hungry. It is not really because the sugar causes you to want more within a short period of time.
When I crave food, I am craving empty calories or junk food, not something satisfying and healthy.
I am looking to food for comfort.
I want the crunch of tortilla chips (not baby carrots) or the cool sweetness of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with crunchy goodies inside each bite.
But why?
Instead of looking to Jesus to satisfy my emptiness, I mindlessly crave food.
Think seriously. Am I having food cravings because deep inside I am:
- Unsatisfied – maybe with who I am, or my possessions!!
- Lacking – peace, joy, or happiness with what life is giving me
- Incomplete – not spending time with the Lord leaves me incomplete!
- Hollow – there is a void within that only Jesus can fill!
- Shallow – without going deeper into God’s Word and talking with Him, I will be shallow!
Cravings point to an emptiness in our soul when our deepest need for Jesus is not filled.
How Food Cravings Keep You from God
It’s not that you won’t spend time reading your Bible or in prayer.
It’s not that your relationship with God is not real.
Let’s go to the next level and wholeheartedly seek God with all our heart.
By looking at the root of why you are struggling with these cravings, you will see how you might be trying to fill a need with food.
Instead of going to the Lord with that need, we start popping food into our mouth.
Going Deeper with God
As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, (1 Peter 2:2)
I know that our struggles with food are important to God.
- Ask God to give you a desire to be healthy on the inside. Wanting to be healthy for the sake of vanity of a skinnier you will never last. Being spiritually healthy will help you to grow deeper with God and be empowered by Him.
- What you eat matters but not as much as the spiritual food that will fill and give your heart satisfaction now and through eternity.
- Replace your vicious cycles of eating with a quick prayer for strength to overcome your cravings.
My food cravings no longer include endless glasses of iced tea, humungous handfuls of chocolate chips, bread, pastries, and carbs.
BUT what if I craved God like I crave a healthy snack?
I have picked up “Made to Crave, Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food” by Lysa TerKeurst and started to read it again. It’s making me think deeply about how my dependence on food to satisfy my cravings can keep me from going deeper with God.
Will you join me as I consider what my food cravings have to do with having a deeper walk with God?
RESOURCES for YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT
ESV Journaling Bible
Interleaved Edition (Printed TruTone, Summer Garden) Imitation Leather
Getting healthy isn’t about weight loss as much as about getting everything in line spiritually first. You will love the approach of this FREE 5-Day Challenge!
