God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7
Remember those paper chains you used to put together as a child? All you had to do was insert a strip of paper into the last link and stick the ends together. Then it was time for the next link. Before you knew it, you had a nice, long chain. According to one source, people have been making paper chains since at least 225 BC. But we’ve been making emotional and spiritual chains far longer than that. Unfortunately, these chains can create enormous impediments to God’s peace.
Many of us, for instance, are overweight. We say yes to one little brownie after another, and then we wonder why we can’t seem to lose weight. We know we lack self-control, but we’ve given up doing anything about it.
Author Joanna Weaver admits to a lifelong struggle with weight. Last time I saw her, however, she looked lovely—tall and svelte. Let’s listen in on how she learned to let God lead her in the fight to break the chains that held her. “Instead of helping me handle my weight issue,” she says, “the Lord began to convict me of my choice of reading material.
“You see, at the time I was basically addicted to Christian fiction.
“Now, there is nothing wrong with a wholesome story. The problem lay in the fact I couldn’t read just one novel at a time—much less a few pages before bed. No, I was a binge reader. Which meant one book right after another. Forget housework, forget cooking, and ‘Don’t bother me! I’m reading.’”
So Joanna stopped reading fiction for a year. And guess what, the discipline she gained from fasting from fiction spread into other areas of her life, particularly her eating. “When I obeyed God in the specific area He pointed out,” she says, “it was as though a single link in the chain that bound me snapped. But soon other links lost their power as well, and I began walking in a freedom I’d never experienced before.”
As Joanna points out, the secret to living in greater freedom involves letting God choose our battles and then playing the role he assigns us. That’s the way to both break the chains and to experience the peace we desire.
Father, don’t let me ignore the voice of your Spirit speaking through my conscience. Help me to pay attention and to do what you are asking.
This is an excerpt from: Becoming a Woman at Peace
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