What does it take to move a mountain? Making a monumental change seems like a daunting task. No matter what the mountain looks like that needs to be moved, it many times overwhelms and paralyzes us into a state of inactivity.
It seems too difficult to climb, go around or tunnel through. The inactivity towards change makes the mountain loom larger and larger and larger.
Time has a way of enlarging the improbable to be utterly impossible. What looks big today, will look gigantic a year from now and monumental 10 years from now. The longer it sits without movement, the bigger it grows at least in our mind.
Without action, the mountain won’t be removed, changed or eradicated overnight. For instance, if your mountain is extreme weight loss of more than 100 pounds, you won’t lose it overnight just because you restrict your food intake for a few months.
What has to happen for health to be restored is a course correction, a subtle but meaningful shift. It starts in the mind with the way you view food. Food is fuel for your body to perform the tasks you have been assigned to carry out on this earth.
To lose weight, you must change your perspective of why you eat. You have to decide that you will eat to live rather than live to eat. This subtle play on words makes a big impact when implemented and adopted completely.
This subtle shift has to be acted upon so you no longer eat things based on how they look, smell or taste. You no longer eat them just because you crave them.
Your brain must be rewired to think about why you eat certain things, what your body needs for optimal performance and how you will feel in the long-run, rather than your stomach’s immediate pleasure.
Up to this point, these subtle shifts are imperceptible because they are all occurring in your brain, redirecting your thoughts so eventually your feelings about food change. Then your behaviors will follow suit because you have allowed God to reprogram you.
Blasting away at the mountain and expecting it to crumble immediately doesn’t really work.
It takes persistent faith to move a mountain. If you have even the tiniest bit of faith you can say to the mountain move and it will move.1 The time frame for mountain moving isn’t described.
You think it means immediately because that’s just the type of society you live in. You want things done instantly. Speaking to the mountain,1 though, takes first convincing one’s self that the mountain can be moved.
God already believes it. You don’t have to convince Him. Most prayers for mountain-moving focus on convincing God the mountain needs to be moved. He already told you how to move it. He gave you the key.
It takes acting in faith for mountains to move. The shifts will be subtle as you begin to work consistently and persistently with faith and effort toward your goal of monumental change.
There is not a recognizable difference when a 430-pound person loses a pound or even 10 or 30 pounds. It takes a loss of about 50 pounds before any change is really perceived by another person.
If you are the one losing weight you feel it, though. Your clothes begin to fit differently. You can sit better in chairs. You move the seat in your car a little closer to the steering wheel.
You’ve done the subtle shift in your mind of juxtaposing words. You said and continue to say, “I am eating to live, not living to eat.”
It seemed like a small thing at the time, but this time you believe it. This time you mean it and you are backing it up with faith and actions.
You are putting trust in God, not to do it for you, but to sustain you while you move the mountain.
These slight alternations in how you think will eventually result in an astounding difference in your life.
One day you’ll be looking through old pictures of yourself and you won’t believe the change that has happened in just a few years.
You will go to your closet to get your favorite shirt from last year and realize it hangs on you now and needs to be given away.
You put on a new pair of jeans that were too small six months ago so you put them in the back of your drawer. Now, they are too big and you didn’t even get to wear them.
You see a video of yourself sitting beside someone you think of as skinny and you are as small or smaller.
The mountain has moved when you weren’t cognitively aware of the movement.
The ease of the movement cannot be attributed to your own self-effort, though. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit, that same power that raised Christ from dead.2
He supported you when you put your faith to action. It was Him working through you, but you were cooperating with Him.
There’s no better feeling that knowing that you were obedient in joining with the mountain-moving God of the universe.
Subtle shifts; monumental changes.
And you are transformed.3
1 Matthew 17:20
2 Romans 8:11
3 Romans 12:1-2
Teresa Shields Parker is a wife, mother, business owner, life group leader, speaker and author of Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds and Stopped Trying to Earn God’s Favor and Sweet Grace Study Guide: Practical Steps to Lose Weight and Overcome Sugar Addiction. Get a free chapter of her memoir on her blog at Teresa Shields Parker.com. Connect with her there or on her Facebook page.
Teresa Shields Parker is a Christian weight loss author, coach, podcaster, and speaker, who has lost 250 pounds and kept it off since 2013. Her books include: “Reconnecting Jayne: Her Sister’s Support,” “Rebuilding Jayne: Her Father’s Protection,” “Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds and Stopped Trying to Earn God’s Favor,” “Sweet Grace Study Guide,” “Sweet Victory: Winning the Battle,” “Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds,” “Sweet Journey to Transformation: Practical Steps to Lose Weight and Live Healthy”, “Sweet Freedom: Losing Weight and Keeping It Off With God’s Help,” “Sweet Freedom Study Guide,” “Sweet Change: True Stories of Transformation,” “Sweet Hunger: Developing an Appetite for God,” and “Sweet Excuses: Stop Lying to Yourself & Start Losing Weight.” She also offers Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy and VIP intensive coaching. Don’t miss her weekly podcast, Sweet Grace for Your Journey, where she shares tips from her personal journey of losing weight and discovering healthy living. Contact her at [email protected].
Thank you, Theresa, for this post. I have been considering dropping sugar completely for a while now because of issues I’ve been having with my skin. I think it’s eczema but it could be psoriasis. Either way it’s really itchy and I have been trying to figure out what to do about it. Some people try to cure it topically but from what I read that is just dealing with the symptoms the real issue is in what I eat.
I expressed my desire to stop eating sugar and a friend suggested I watch a video called “Sugar. The bitter truth.” It was an hour and a half long but it was very eye opening. Now I want to figure out how to shift my whole family’s eating habits. My husband watched the video with me and told me I need to show it to the kids.
I have a lot of questions about how to do this without any negative side effects but mostly how to stick to it. Your book really was the key that got me started considering sugar as a possible cause for my issues. I’m pretty dependent on sugar for keeping me awake. Now I’m determined to not fall back on sugar anymore. Thank you so much for helping me see the truth about sugar.
I’m going to get that video. I need that info. As I said in my book I didn’t know all the dangers of sugar before I started, I just did it because, well, I was like a dying woman gasping for a drink of water. Surrendering sugar was like reaching for the drink of water that God had been holding out to me all the time.
I’m not sure it is due to sugar but my psoriasis has cleared up in addition to weight loss, increased energy and better joint movement. Oh and I am no longer on BP meds and officially do not have diabetes. My psoriasis is on the palms of my hands and my feet. I think my daily water exercise does as much for that as anything else. Which reminds me I gotta run or I will miss it today.
Thanks for the shout out. Keep in touch. You can do this. Read the other stuff on my blog. I talk a lot about this issue, but then you realize that. Right? LOL!
In context it does sound like an immediate thing to cure a boy. And I think it could be used that way. However, when you think of what He was telling the disciples, He was talking about a lifestyle change of commitment and obedience. And I think I feel another blog post coming on, LOL. They come over me in waves these days. Sweet Grace for your journey, my Friend.
So…how do I make the first step. I have been sinning with food for so long
Christine, have you read my book, Sweet Grace? First step is to read the book. Second step is to get my Study Guide and go through each step and really concentrate on what it says, Join my Facebook page, http://www.Facebook.com/TeresaShieldsParkerWriter. Connect and stay accountable. These are all important steps.
Know if it has been years it will be a process but the process is much easier when you know God really does care about this but you hold the key. First steps are always the hardest. After awhile walking in truth becomes second nature.
Please keep in touch and let me hear if you have made progress on the first steps I outlined here.