I Am Living Proof

I am at a lost of what to call this collective effort of my peeps wanting to lose weight. Thus, the title for this post.

My friend Brent at InWorship throws down this challenge:

“Starting this Friday, I will begin a new journey of eating well and exercising. Over the next couple of days, I will be working with my wife to figure out an eating plan and a daily routine to whip me into shape.”

… whereas my Twitter pal, Travis, throws down this challenge:

• 30 mins of exercise every day
• drink 64 oz. of water each day
• No soda
• No fried food

I am wrapping up a fast food fast in order to cut out both bad foods and convenience and a coffee fast (as a courtesy to my friend who fasted coffee for a month). I have been adding sports (basketball, soccer, football) to my everyday routine and I have gotten soda consumption down to once/twice per week all the while taking in a gallon of water per day.

I definitely don’t want to go back to fast food at all. So I figure I pick up these challenges, I can keep with that change in lifestyle and keep losing weight.

Most of all, I want to support and encourage those who want to lose weight and get healthy.

Over the last two years, I have lost 80 lbs. I was 10lbs away from my goal but now I want to lower that goal from 240 to 220lbs.. With that new goal, that would put me 20lbs. away.

I have a goal to aim for and I will be alongside others who want to lose weight as well. Woohoo!

Note: I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before. But I have to give thanks to God for taking care of my temple. When I started dieting, I would fail. Then I thought, “If I depend on Him for everything, why can’t that include a healthy lifestyle?”. So I leaned into Him to show me, help me and teach me for what is best for me.

Our God alone is good. - Ed.

A beautiful friend of mine, Ashley Simpson, wrote a piece on Spiritual Warfare and the battlefield of our hearts.

One line stood out to me:

Choking on popcorn cornels . ….. The “do nothing soldiers” convict me.

If it moved you, show her love by commenting over there.

Let me tell you how my last 5 minutes unraveled

Gmail shows I have an email from Classmates.com.

I thought, “This might be legit because back in 1996 I halfway filled out a profile before realizing I wasn’t going to pay a fee per month just to look up old classmates of mine.”

Alas, I didn’t have a Gmail account then.  In fact, no one did.  Gmail wasn’t around until 2004.

No alarms.

In this email was a link to Blogger website.  “Umm,” I wondered, “that is a mystery because how could somebody spam their blog to people who have merely halfway registered with Classmates.”

Now all the geeks reading this have the spam/phish alarms going off in their heads.  I swear I have those same alarms.  I hope I do after being a professional geek for 15 years

Alas, just wonderment.

No alarms.

Clicked on link.  End result: porn.

In the past, I would have been furious at several things.  One, naturally being my own stupidity.  Two, at Gmail for their recently weakened spam filters.

But in one split nanosecond, I ceased to become angry because I quickly realized one thing:

I couldn’t see past the top 25 pixels on the site.

From just the top of the website, I knew it was porn.  Without having to look at the rest of the website page, I calmly click the Close Tab x in Firefox.

Then I shared with my boss and co-workers.  Apparently, I am going to Geek Jail for being so lame.

Sixty-four days since the day that God sent an answer to prayer.

I knew when I wrote that post that something was going to happen. I didn’t know what but I knew God was in control.

In that time, my faith in…

God answering all of my questions

God being my Healer

God being my Portion

God being my Strength

God being my Joy

Forever

… has only not been moved but has only solidified to the point I simply don’t know of any other way, that is, God is not my Healer or God is not my Portion.

Even still, I can’t even accept the fact that God is even sometimes my Healer, Portion, Strength or Joy even when I don’t do good works because that flies in the face of what I know God to be: the same yesterday, today and forever.

My brain cannot accept any other fact because it is all I know. It is a fact, like we breathe air in order for our bodies to function or 2+2=4, that God is my everything and all in all.

On top of all that, God spoke into me gifts of leadership, discernment and visions/dreams. He spoke that I will be remarried soon (was never at the forefront of my thoughts but God’s will is His will). He spoke that I will shake this planet.

Only God gets the glory. I don’t want any part of it because I am not even close to being worthy. Even I wanted it, I am still not worthy.

In the last 64 days, I used to think that God will move. Now I know He will.

How, I am not sure.

No matter what will happens, I am still utterly dependent on who His is in me.

Let us see what happens.

Several months ago, I had a friend who passed away.

I just found out last night that his widow took her own life.

I am not sure if they believed God is their Savior and Lord.

Up until recently, I thought it was enough for me to boldly walk my faith, set myself apart and others will catch on.

I now have proof in hand that it is not enough.

Their lives have now flipped my head inside out.

For some reason, I am reminded of one song, One Mic by Nas.

In that song, I will constantly ask..

One God to show me how to do things His Son did

That I won’t quit praying…

One prayer - tell God forgive for one sin

The desire of my heart is that…

All I need is one life, one try, one breath I’m one man
what I stand for speaks for itself, they don’t understand

Now is the time to make my life worth something.