Got a thick waist and a thin wallet?

by | Children's & Family Health, Health & Wellness, Inspirational | 0 comments

Got a thick waist and a thin wallet?

by Michelle M Pearson

I saw this hilarious cartoon some time back and was too cute not to use in an article! Here was the caption:

Dear God,

My prayer for this next year is for

a fat bank account & a thin body.

Please don’t mix these up like
you did last year.

AMEN!

Now, before you go thinking that is irreverent, let me just say there is something about a pot and a kettle…

Truth is, it is never God who gets things mixed up, not ever. But many would sure like to think it is that way! That makes this little humorous reminder the perfect lead-in for our continued discussion on your “Say” versus your “way.”

I’ve gotten answers, understanding, recently on some things that I have literally agonized over for many years. I believe this month holds the very life-changing solutions that many of you are looking for – perhaps even without recognizing you are searching.

I feel in my spirit that this month holds the keys to perhaps a serious medical crisis that can be stopped or averted, to a financial breakthrough that has never yet come, or to the restoration of a child that is away from fellowship, or a marriage that isn’t as loving or as spicy as your heart longs for. I believe with all my heart the articles this month will hold some dramatic revelation for every person who will simply have eyes to see and a heart that is receptive.

Here goes…

I was in a kitchen of a friend’s house a few years ago with a whole group of ladies who happened to have been through our classes at one time or another over the years. Someone made a comment referencing something I had taught them all, and teary-eyed, I exclaimed, “You got it!” and was astounded. Her reply was even more poignant because the occasion of our gathering was the death of a dear friend. She said, “It’s not that we don’t get it, Michelle, we just don’t do it.”

Why not? I wanted to scream. Sometimes I am tempted to be discouraged when it seems we spend every day and every single cent we have to teach and train others in the life-saving truths about the magnificently made human body and how it can live in health, only to see so many still suffering, even dying of preventable diseases.

We know it doesn’t have to be that way. But it seems we just don’t get through to people. I have cried out to God, “How can we be better teachers? How can we find better, more effective ways of communicating? What can done, Lord, to get the truth across so that MORE PEOPLE LIVE?” It is our passion and our lives to help others live fully and strongly finish their course.  

Then, recently, we received a letter from a reader that said, “I know what to do, and I just don’t. I don’t need to pay for another program if I am not going to do it anyway. I just lack discipline.”

I pondered that in my heart for hours, perhaps days. My first thought was, “Fine with me. Until you are ready for help, I cannot help you.” And my husband, Dr. Ray Pearson had the same reaction. You can only do what you can do. Right?

Not. The Lord corrected me. His love caused me to see that was a purely carnal reaction. It is NOT true. “Until you are ready for help, I cannot help you.” That is not true and it was definitely not to be our mindset.

It is true that people do not need one more “shiny object.”  But, they do need discipline. So is it that all these folks who are not doing what they say they know to do just need “will power?” Will another new diet work for them by providing rules to follow?

Face it, only folks who are not struggling with what you are will tell you just use your will power. Easy for them to say. Impossible for you to do.

But aren’t all things possible to him or her that believes? Yes, but the long-term success comes when you learn the difference between will-power and discipline.

As I searched my heart and His Word, I found that discipline does not come from will power. And neither will-power nor discipline is developed, by the way, through the bondage of law, rules, and regulations. They only serve to show up your lack thereof.

It is with the will, not the emotions, that we make a decision to follow a better course, a brighter path. It is through discipline that we learn how to intersect the grace and strength needed to stay the course, to walk that path.

But, it is only through being discipled that we develop discipline.

Disciple, mentor, teach, en-courage. Coach. All of these describe methods that bring out the muscle to tread on that which was unreachable to us with only our will power. To set the will is powerful indeed. To follow that with wisdom (the skillful application of knowledge) is what propels us with forward progress into the fullness of our purpose.

Another thing the Lord showed me is that He did not wait until we wanted help to provide for the answer. It is written in Romans 5:8 (AMP), “But God shows and clearly proves His own love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ the Messiah, the Anointed One died for us.“ (Italics are mine.)

Here are two really important lessons:

First, it takes your submission to being a disciple in order to develop discipline – you will never get it on your own – that is His pattern and design!

And, second, unlike the old Buddhist proverb which says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” God provides the Teacher well before we are ready to receive the provision.

The provision, however, is nonetheless waiting for us whenever we choose as an act of our will to 1) recognize and 2) accept the provision that is right under our nose all the time. So, the teacher does not arrive when you are ready, but only appears because we have finally opened our hearts and our eyes to His way, His plan, and His purpose for our lives.

Two different couples, each living within an hour of our clinic, recently found their way to our office. Interestingly enough, neither of these two couples knows about the other, yet they both came to visit the same week. And, they had, in the month’s prior, at great trouble and expense, traveled half across the nation to a more famous clinic located in Florida. After doing so, both couples, still searching for answers, were referred to us by two different people.

By their own accounts, our visits with them turned out to be a true God-provision of help for health for both families. Answers were found, problems solved, paths planned and executed, and recovery of health began. And here we were right under their noses all the time. It seems we have all attended the same church every week for at least the last four years! Imagine that… there all along.  

I used the story of these two couples to illustrate how lovingly God places our provision where it is easy to lay hold of; it is not difficult unless we make it so. They reached to Him for help… and it was already right here waiting for them.

All these lessons combined teach us just how many people may be missing their provision in some area or every area of life because of willful disobedience to the inner witness calling to their heart OR willful rebellion as to the method God has chosen to possess the provision. And our provision in one area is directly tied to our yielding to Him in another!

Do you already know that the inner witness is calling you to a better way of life but you are unwilling to make changes to possess it?

Are you missing out or doing without because you will not recognize the powerful mentors, elders, or other vessels of Godly wisdom He has deliberately and lovingly placed in your life for your protection, purpose, and provision?

Is your heaven-sized breakthrough waiting right under your nose – perhaps in your own hometown of Nazareth, so to speak? And you think they are but a carpenter’s son?

The provision, the breakthrough, is here for you when you choose to yield to that inner prompting.

Yielding to your purpose is the first step to fulfilling your purpose. Submitting to the discipleship and instruction of God’s choosing is the first step to possessing your provision.

No amount of new shiny objects, exercise videos, workout clothes, unused gym memberships, diets and HCG drops or hormone shots, will substitute for genuinely and sincerely doing it God’s way.  You can’t avoid having to be led.

When you know what He’s asking you to do, SAY YES with your will.

After you yield your will, look for your provision close by… for He has seen ahead and provided before you decided.

Know someone who is struggling with some health problems?

Of course you do! Please share this with them.

Believe. Choose. Activate. Achieve. (Repeat.)

Michelle Pearson Everett
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