Live Free

Have you ever tried looking back over the past year or so, and found that your mind gets drawn to all the negative things, the bad habits you’ve been carrying, and you’ve been trapped in a circle of regret or fear that continues all year long? Well, today I want to encourage you there is a different way to live! There is hope for a better future, and it comes in the form of living free.

My mother will tell you that I’ve always eaten a lot since day one, but it wasn’t healthy, and I ended up becoming unfit and developing ‘secret eater’ habits. I had a hole in my life that I didn’t know how to fill, and so I tried to fill it with food. Growing up, that looked like too many bowls of cereal or asking for seconds faster then anyone else. Once I became more independent, I tried to fill the emptiness by making the minute walk to Sainsburys, grabbing a load of sweets, and scoffing them back home whilst trying to hide the packets from my house mates.

This unhealthy cycle led to me putting on a lot of weight, and it left a dark cloud of guilt over my life. Thoughts of not being good enough, not looking good enough, not feeling good enough, were regular visitors to my mind. I began to dislike myself as a person. I knew I had to do something, but at the same time I felt equally helpless with regards to what I needed to do. After all, how do you break the habit of a lift time?

Then a moment of breakthrough came.

As I was praying at a church event, I felt a deep yearning to just let go of what I was carrying. So much so, that I picked up one of the pieces of baggage being used as prophetic props and walked once around the room, before defiantly putting it down and declaring it was dealt with on the cross! What had previously been like a fog, became clear. The lies that the devil had sewn into my life were removed, and the freedom I have in Christ became apparent. I was free to live!

Hope For Us All

Now, I’m not saying you need to do it in such dramatic fashion, but if there’s something dragging you down, then you need to let it go and give it to God, because He has dealt with it!

In Romans 4:25, it says “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification”. Do you know what the means?! Jesus Christ died, so that we may no longer have to dwell on our past lives, our old sinful lives, but we can look forward to a life that is justified by the creator of the universe. If we choose to accept this free gift and respond to it accordingly, then we can look forward to a relationship with God that is freer than ever before because we don’t have to live in the same regret again!

For some, that might mean they let go of the guilt of broken relationships. For others, it may mean they forgive someone who has wronged them. For me, it meant forgiving myself for the way I’d abused by body and denying the lies that I had grown to believe about myself.

After doing so, I have felt lighter in a sense, like a weight had been taken off of my shoulders (no puns intended I swear…). I found that after I had let go of this past guilt, I was happier, I had a greater relationship with God. This was because I had removed a stumbling block from my life that put a barrier between me and God. I felt freer to talk to God in prayer, I felt a greater connection with God in the way that I had words from Him and worshipped. All things that come from letting go of our baggage, and laying it at the foot of the cross!

Patience

Now, just like Paul writing in Phillipians 3:13-14, I will admit that it has taken me time to try and fully break through all of the lies into a place of full freedom, but I am getting there. My food problems didn’t end overnight, in fact I’m still making the final steps to changing my habits. But I’m probably the fittest I’ve ever been and I’ve grown in maturity and wisdom so much, and life has been so much better because of the small victories that have subsequently happened since giving my guilt to God.

Just the other day I was tempted to eat a couple of jelly tots, so put them in my mouth, but whilst thinking about it I realised I didn’t want to set myself up for the temptation of eating the rest of the bag, so I spat them out! A little random and silly, you may think, but for me it was a defiant move to say I want to live differently, that I can live differently.

You Can Live Free!

I know for that for almost all of us, we carry baggage/lies/guilt around with us all the time. And I just want to say that if a ‘larger gentleman’ can spit out a couple of sweets to make a change, then there is hope for us all!! So, if there is a lie or a guilt that you have identified in your life, then I’d like you to join me in saying the following prayer:

“Hey God, I’m carrying around this baggage in my life and it’s hurting me, and I know I can’t deal with this on my own. So God, I pray you help take this away from me and allow me to forgive, to let go. I know this is something that You want the best for my life because You love me so much that You sent Your beloved Son to die on the cross, and for that I am truly thankful! I also pray, that in letting go You give me something in return, a blessing to replace the brokenness I once held and to keep a hold of as I move forward.”

If you want to follow this up more, then I implore you to chat about this with a mentor or close friend to talk about it and give it to God! I hope my ‘little’ story has been encouraging to you today, peace and love to you all!