Accountability Update

Usually deals don't work with me, but I think I might have just found one that will.  I have someone very dear to me who is involved in something really unhealthy so I made a deal...I'll quit sugar and my loved one's bad habit stops, too.  I'm currently working on day 4 without refined sugar.  It's amazing what proper motivation will do for you.  I really don't want my loved one reverting so I'm willing to do what I should have done for myself years ago.  Except I know it will only hold so long.

Why is it addictions are so impossible to avoid and nearly impossible to break? 

I am reading a book called "Desiring God" by John Piper.  His premise is we will, at all costs, seek after pleasure but the greatest enjoyment to be found is in God.  He contends we should seek happiness in God, enjoyment in His presence, and complete fulfillment in Him.  In other words, we replace the fleeting pleasure we find in our addictions with true pleasure in God.  I'm still wrapping my head around Piper's assertions, but I've only read the intro and first chapter.  Hopefully, by the time I'm done with his book, I'll have a better grip on this.

I don't know about you, but I've failed so many times at trying to break my unhealthy habits, I'm afraid to even try again.  I am willing to abide by this deal I made to stop eating sugar, but in the long run, I need to find a way to replace the happiness and fullness I find in food (a pleasure which lasts only as long as I'm in the midst of it and is almost immediately followed by guilt) with a pleasure in God which has no regrets in the aftermath. 

I can live with giving up one pleasure for a greater one. 

I can live with that long term.

Until next time,
Becca