“Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with men is possible with God’.” (Luke 18:27)
Well by now all those New Years’ Resolutions that you’ve made have probably gone the way of the dinosaur: They’re nowhere to be found. That’s normally the case with me, too, but I made a New Years’ Resolution last November and asked God to help me keep it. Boy did he ever deliver, and how.
I want to be absolutely sure that God gets all the credit for the testimony I am about to share with you. Believe me, what he did for me is about as supernatural as it can get.
I was as low in November as I think I’ve ever been in my life. Here I was, 45 years old, 320 pounds, heading into Thanksgiving and Christmas, and knowing that I couldn’t stand to come out of it with even a five-pound gain. On top of it all, my body had been trying to tell me something for several years, but I wasn’t interested in listening. I was constantly tired, couldn’t walk short distances without becoming winded, and was literally beginning to feel tingling sensations in my face, toes, and fingers. As a diabetic, I knew that I was only months away from insulin shots. To make a long story short, I had hit the wall.
I asked God to help me. “Lord,” I said, “you’ve got to put me in front of someone who can hold me accountable and help me lose weight.” It’s a shame that we often turn to the Lord at last resort, but that’s exactly what I did. The “Mike Ruffin Plan” was failing and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I guess I was finally right where the good Lord wanted me, wasn’t I?
I told my doctor in early November that he was either going to have to wire my mouth shut or find someone who could help rebuild the confidence that I needed to lose weight. “Doc,” I told him, “I’m killing myself, one bite at a time.”
My doctor told me about a physician in town who was garnering quite a reputation for helping severely obese people like me lose weight. I made an appointment and put myself on a diet on the Monday following Thanksgiving.
Well, you can tell by my picture that I’m slimmer. I’ve lost 75 pounds. But the real victory does not come from what I’ve lost, but from what I’ve gained through this experience. God has taught me in a dramatic way that nothing is impossible with him.
The amazing thing is God didn’t just send one person to help me with weight loss. He sent scores of people my way, each of them offering encouragement every time they saw me. I couldn’t have done it without them. God’s Word is right: “Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.” (Proverbs 12:25)
I told a story from the Bible in a January column in which I announced my New Years’ Resolution that bears repeating. In 2 Kings, God, through his Prophet Elisha, made an ax head float that had found its way to the bottom of the Jordan River. It fell into the water while they were cutting a tree for their camp. Much like many of our problems, it, too, seemed insignificant in the whole scheme of things, but the believer who lost it cried out for help because it didn’t belong to him. He had borrowed it from a friend. (2 Kings 6:1-7)
Interestingly, that story is located right between the healing of a Syrian General and the deliverance of Israel’s Army. It sticks out like a sore thumb to demonstrate God’s care and provision for those of us who are also willing to trust him with the small things that frequently turn our lives upside down.
My dad used to tell me that the difference between an opportunity and a problem is perspective. For me, my weight gain was a problem that seemed insurmountable, but to God it was an opportunity to teach me about his care and provision.
So you see, my New Years’ Resolution may not have looked that important when it was lined up against all the other shortcomings in my life, but it was important to me, and it’s comforting to know that God cares as much about it as I do.
I don’t know if you have an ax head that seems to have disappeared to the bottom of your river of life, but I do know that God will help you find it. The strange thing is you’ll never find it by looking down, which is why the psalmist said, “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” (Psalms 5:3)
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