Yes, I’m still on this raw food journey. My “food focus” has decreased so much, praise the Lord! It hardly seems accurate to even associate “food” with the journey any longer. Food is what I eat to stay alive… in other words, I eat to live, not live to eat these days. Of course, it used to be the other way around.

A while back I planned to do Beth Moore’s study of Daniel, but I allowed life to get in the way again. You see, the Husband bought this study for me for Christmas in 2009. I started it at the end of that year, but I only made it through the first week before becoming distracted. Well, I’ve started over. I can see why the enemy did not want me to do this study. I can also see why the timing of doing it now is so ideal. As many of you already know, Daniel is a book that testifies to the fulfillment of prophecy (the capture of Israel by the Babylonians), but it’s also a book of prophecy in it’s own right (which I have so missed studying this topic).

The message that spoke to me most during the first week was one of “friendly captivity”. This was the environment that Daniel and his friends found themselves in. No, it wasn’t friendly to their personal religion, but it was a society of overindulgence, fulfilling desires, education, knowledge, enlightenment…etc. They were given rich foods from the king’s table and an education like no other. Many would just meld into their captivity situation and say, “this isn’t so bad”. Sound familiar? So many of us have lived in captivity to something (culture, television, political correctness, food, bitterness…etc) for so long, that we don’t even recognize it as such anymore. Now it is just “who we are”. We accept it as normal, but not Daniel.

Personally, I reflected on the elevated position I’d given food in my life. I bowed to it with virtually every thought. It held me captive in so many ways, when truthfully, it shouldn’t have the power to do so. I began to think about how freedom was available to me from the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior, but that I didn’t live free. Why? Because captivity was friendly (at times anyway) to me. It was what I knew, what I understood. Walking in freedom required faith. It required turning control over to someone else (God). It required letting go of pride… because after all, pride is at the root of all sin. If I allowed God to apply to my addiction the power that raised Christ from death, wouldn’t that same power be sufficient to break those chains too? Absolutely! It still requires something on my part though. It requires me to turn over control, to be vigilant to recognize attacks from the enemy, and to walk in freedom.

Turning over control sounds rather easy, but it’s not always. I’ve found that, especially in the beginning, I had to “let go and let God” multiple times per day. I would catch myself trying to “control” my weight with a diet-mentality, and I’d have to stop, take those thoughts captive and hand over the reins again. Oh it was so exhausting during those initial months, but it became easier and easier as time went on.

Of course, releasing control doesn’t automatically keep the enemy at bay. No, he keeps looking for a way in. He’s used all kinds of triggers to get me thinking back in that old mindset of captivity. You see, just as is evidenced by Daniel’s captivity, the enemy is always looking for a way to take us back to the pit we came from. As Beth pointed out, Daniel’s people we taken right back to where Israel started. They were taken back to the place where God mixed up the languages. They were taken away from their promised land and sent back in the direction from which God originally called Abraham to leave. They were set back so many generations because they didn’t keep their focus on God. So, to combat the enemy’s fiery darts, we need to walk with the Lord at all times. We need to put on the full armor of God.

Lastly, girded with armor, we need to walk as free people. It is really pointless to be free, but to have the mentality of a slave. In fact, it’s an utter waste! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. When we continue in the captive mind, we are saying that the benefit of captivity far outweighs what we believe we’ll gain from walking in freedom… it’s a great lie, one that has been perpetuated since the moment the serpent hissed his deception to Eve.

I am keenly aware, so many months into this journey, that I could go back to that pit in a heartbeat. Perhaps that’s really what so many captives fear… losing ground. I know I feared it for years. Being “successful” came with the risk of losing that success, and that was humiliating. I developed a “what’s the point” attitude because I rarely witnessed anyone living and staying free. People have become cynical of “positive life changes” because most of the time, they land right back where they started. They lose weight, only to gain it all (plus some) back. They get out of debt, only to get right back in. They get sober, only to find themselves bar hopping again. Well, that doesn’t have to be the pattern. There are people out there living True freedom, precious few that they are. The thing that they have in common is a complete reliance on God. There are no magic pills, chants, contraptions… the power is in the Blood of Jesus… period. That’s where true freedom from captivity can be found… and never lost.

Chronological Bible Reading: Psalm 11, 59; 1 Samuel 21-24; Psalm 7, 27, 31, 34, 52, 56, 120, 140-142; 1 Samuel 25-27; Psalm 17, 35, 54, 63; 1 Samuel 28-31; Psalm 18, 121, 123-125, 128-130; 2 Samuel 1-4; Psalm 6, 8-10, 14, 16, 19, 21; 1 Chronicles 1-2; Psalm 43-45, 49, 84-85, 87; 1 Chronicles 3-5