WEIGH DOWN: HELP! I FEEL HUNGRY ALL THE TIME
Once you begin to wait for true physiological hunger, you discover that there is another feeling of hunger. It is your own "I'm not hungry, but I want it anyway" will. We will call this desire eating, or head hunger. To help you understand this idea, imagine a headstrong two-year-old child, prone to temper tantrums, who sees a toy, desires it, beats his hands on the floor to speed up the service, grabs the toy, and hoards it.
The emptier our souls are, the stronger the desire eating is. This desire eating has grown so over the years that it might even have turned into a monster. It is ravenous, headstrong, willful and self-loving. It feels like a magnetic force to the refrigerator that controls you rather than your controlling it.
We think we love food, we love the taste, we love the feeling of control. We love a secret rendezvous with food. We love to put our children to bed and have no one present to tell us what to do or to judge us. We love to fulfill the desire eating binge at 10 p.m. with foods we have been secretly dreaming of all day long.
Why do we do this? We love the comfortable feeling of eating as much as we want. In fact, we love that desire eating so much that we
have ignored the physical pain of overeating, such as the over-stretched stomach pouch, the pain of the dumping syndrome of diarrhea, or the pain of gastric reflux in the esophagus. We have also ignored the chronic pain of the overweight condition—clothes too tight, joints that hurt, and fatigue. However, at the end of the binge we feel awful about ourselves, and our guilt leads to a feeling of depression.
When we binge or graze without having any physiological hunger, we are looking for a feeling. Looking for a feeling is not wrong. God is the Creator of you and the Creator of feelings; therefore, it is OK to look for a feeling. However, if you go to the physical world or anything in or on this world to get the feeling of comfort, fulfillment, love or control, you may get it only temporarily. But it will disappear and leave you with an even larger gnawing, longing, wanton need than you had before.
The world cannot satisfy. This is true if you go after the intoxicated feeling, the antidepressant feeling, the feeling of sexual lust, the tobacco feeling, the love of money feeling, or the love of the praise of people feeling. After you taste the world and its pleasures, you are empty and you are left in need again. You become even more out of control and desperate.
But when you feed your longing soul with a search for God, His will, and His personality; and when you experiment with talking to Him, doing things His way, getting your prayers answered because you did things His way, trusting Him, and liking Him; then you finally fall in love with Him. Love for God fills your heart, and the old empty feeling leaves permanently.
You start to feel full, fulfilled, not so "hungry" anymore. Panic disorders disappear and anger dissipates. Your "making it happen" goals are not needed as you simply look to God to make it happen. He answers prayers.
What transpires in this transfer is that the ravenous desire eating starts to fade and the true stomach hunger starts to emerge. True stomach hunger is much easier to find as this "desire to just feed yourself" fades.
One of the most practical things you can do with the desire eating feeling is to walk away from it and into a private room to talk to God. (Of course, you can talk to Him in your car or in a room full of people—the location does not stop communication.) I have taught many people just to open up the Word and start reading wherever their eyes fall. God can coordinate personal communication with us. One person took my advice, and she just cried out to God and asked if He even cared. She opened her Bible, and her eyes fell to this passage from Psalm 81:4-10:
... this is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
He established it as a statute for Joseph
when he went out against Egypt...
He says, "I removed the burden from their shoulders;
their hands were set free from the basket.
In your distress you called and I rescued you,
I answered you out of a thundercloud;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. "
Hear, O my people, and I will warn you —
if you would but listen to me, O Israel!
You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not bow down to an alien god.
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."
"Open wide your mouth and I will fill it," says the Lord! She started crying because God was personally communicating to her. At that moment a relationship started that has grown more and more.
"For God does speak— now one way, now another— though man may not perceive it". In my personal life, I cling to my Bible as I used to cling to my chocolate! I keep my eyes open, looking for God's guidance everywhere.
Another practical thing to do with desire eating is to talk to the food and tell it that you are not going to answer to it anymore. You will not obey it when it calls your name from the kitchen cabinets or refrigerator!
Do not be afraid of running to God. He is your Father! And He has the finest personality. I could not describe to you a richer, more powerful, just, and moral being.
I am really excited for what is ahead for you! One day, after your normal lunch time, you will suddenly realize that you have not even thought about food because your stomach has not signaled you to eat. Congratulations! Stomach hunger, rather than head hunger (or desire eating), is beginning to control your eating! And you will also discover that you are beginning to feel closer to God. The transfer is underway!
It was not so crazy to try to fill up your spiritual void or emptiness with food. You have simply made a mistake: you chose physical, earthly food when what you really needed was spiritual food, a give-and-take relationship with God. Believe me, He will be doing most of the giving and you will be doing most of the taking. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."
Open yourself to Him right now, and He will fill your heart. Desire eating will soon disappear if you run to the Bible or to prayer every time you feel this urge to eat when the stomach is not calling for food.
*22\237\2*
