Rethinking Holiday Gorging

I’m sitting here with Marv while he enjoys his time out of the cage. I’ve been watching Youtube, looking for videos that will be helpful in my efforts to be sanctified and corrected.

I started looking at a Derek Prince video about laziness, but since I am currently caught up in a holiday which has become a celebration of overeating, and because I am not completely happy about it, I changed my mind and started looking for material on gluttony.

I got completely delivered from gluttony in 2009. Then one day I went to Sonny’s Barbecue with my friend Mike, and we had the all-you-can-eat ribs. It seems like ever since then, the victory has been tempered.

Before my deliverance, I used to stuff myself routinely. It’s pretty unusual for me to do that now, but I do eat more than I should. When I moved to this farm, I worked outside a lot, and I lost weight no matter what I ate. Then the work slowed down, and I was in the habit of eating more than I had before, so I picked up some pounds.

I have been thinking about my strange talent for cooking, and I have been considering its negative effects. I can cook a lot of things I really enjoy eating, and that presents a problem. Because I have a long list of recipes, I can always cook something I haven’t had in a long time and tell myself it’s okay to eat it because it’s a rare treat. That might be okay if you can only cook 4 things, but when you can cook dozens, you can have a rare treat several times a week. Every dish is “special.”

I thought about that, and then I asked myself what I’m trying to do when I eat something “special.” There had to be a root iniquity that paved the way for gluttony. I realized I was trying to reward myself. “I worked all day with the chainsaw and tractor, so now it’s okay to have a pint of ice cream.” “I spent 5 hours dealing with a mess my dad made, so now it’s okay to have a big bowl of pasta.”

Why would I do that? Why would I feel like I needed a reward? The answer is self-pity. I allow myself to overeat sometimes because I’ve convinced myself I’m a victim. I feel that I’m owed.

I don’t think of myself as a self-pitying person. When I have a problem, I don’t ask God why it hit such a wonderful person. I assume I’m doing something wrong. I ask for correction. I try to attack the problem. I don’t like self-pity. Nonetheless, it looks like I have it. I may have a flavor that’s different from the ones I recognize, but it’s still self-pity.

Here’s another strange question I asked myself: I can’t do anything sinful to reward myself…so what do I do? Other people get drunk or high on Saturday night. They indulge in sexual sin. They gluttonize. I can’t think of anything I can do, as a Christian.

I don’t know if people are supposed to be able to reward themselves, but we do. Tonight I’m thinking about that, so it’s only natural that I would wonder if there are any rewards I can give myself.

I can turn off the phone and read a good book. I can go for a walk in the woods. I can watch a movie I like. Those things aren’t all that rewarding, though. Not like a pint of ice cream, a line of coke, or a night of fornication. No one ever says, “I’m going to go crazy and spoil myself tonight with a nice walk.”

This is really weird. Maybe we’re not supposed to give ourselves rewards. If not, what are we supposed to do when we’re tired or upset? Do we just take the hit and walk it off? Maybe that’s the actual answer.

It’s not a pleasant prospect. I don’t want to go through life sucking it up and enduring. It would be sort of like going through life holding your breath. Eventually you want to exhale.

Unpleasant things happen to us all the time. Life on earth is like being outdoors in a hailstorm that never stops. You keep getting whacked. One would think God would occasionally provide pleasant experiences to counterbalance the whacks. Surely there must be something.

I’ll have to ask God for the answer. Whatever the situation is, I want to know and accept it.

When you’re a worldly person, you don’t expect to deprive your flesh all the time. You look for cheat days and so on. Christianity doesn’t work like that. You never get a free day to sin. There are no vacations.

I’m always glad to find out I have a character problem, because the information is an open door to freedom. Character problems cause failure and suffering, so when you find out you have a character problem, you suddenly have a way to improve your life. Fix your character, and you will definitely be freed from certain things.

I am not a victim. I like to say that to myself. It’s a little bit like taking a bad-tasting medicine, but it’s a good thing to say. It’s true. People and spirits have done terrible things to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m a victim. My sins and iniquities more than justify every bad thing that has happened. If I admit I’m part of the problem, I claim that in the past, I’ve changed my life for the worse. If I can change it for the worse, I can also make it better. God told me that when I deny an excuse, I take my power back.

I used to drive my sister crazy by saying, “You’re not a victim.” I was angry when I said it, so maybe I should have refrained. It made her furious. It enraged her to be told she wasn’t a victim. False victimhood was a treasure to her; she built her life around it. She truly loved it. She used it as justification to treat people horribly, and she didn’t want it taken away.

I don’t get furious when I say it to myself, but it’s sobering.

When I was young, I was sure I was a victim. I was raised in a house of hatred and abuse. All sorts of misfortune came to me, for no apparent reason. People mistreated me. Maybe I had a point when I was very young, but once I became an adult, I should have knocked off the victim nonsense and taken responsibility.

Interesting stuff.

I really don’t want to stuff myself on holidays any more, and I hate the effort of cooking elaborate meals. Maybe I’ll blow off Christmas dinner entirely. I’m souring on the whole concept of feasts.

What kind of holiday is it if you have to eat yourself sick in order to feel like you celebrated?