SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Hi, and welcome to our podcast, Revelation Within on the Go. I'm Heidi Files MaEpherson, one of the hosts, and the owner and the lead coach of the RevelationWithin.org industry.

SPEAKER_00: 0:14

And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach, and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We are so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within.

SPEAKER_01: 0:37

Last week we laid a foundation. Hopefully, you have had a chance to listen to that. If not, it's it's still out there somewhere in in Etherland. And that foundation was to prepare our hearts with God's truth, maybe practice the five intentions of spirit-led eating. So the holidays, we have a survival guide going into it. And if you missed it, do go back and listen. It'll set you up beautifully for this episode.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04

Yeah. Yeah, because we really want to focus on keeping it real here. What is the truth? Even with your very best intentions, you're probably going to mess up. I'm going to mess up. You will, I will. There is just no possibility of any of us being perfect at anything during the hot. Oh man, then why try? Why should I try? Oh, because what's going to happen is we're going to take this to the Lord and He's going to turn it into something good and beautiful and amazing. And we are going to learn more and more and more. And so it's going to be good. And we're covered in grace, of course. Something is going to go sideways during the holidays. You're going to eat past satisfied somewhere along the way. You might even, you might even shut God out. You might fall off the horse and like you might get stuck. And we want to help you not to get stuck. Yeah. You might yell at your kids or your grandkids. You might actually disappear into a batch of fudge. That could happen. Yes, it could. Let's just be ready.

SPEAKER_01: 2:21

Well, that's one perspective. That's a good perspective. What then, though? What does it look like to go from that kind of moment or bunch of moments into walking in grace? Not just talk about it, not just talk about grace when I feel like I've fallen short, when I feel like I have failed. What does it look like to walk in grace then?

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Oh my gosh, this was such a game changer for me, Heidi, when I started eating this way and really surrendering my food, eating, body, everything like that to the Lord. This was a game changer because I got stuck all the time. I would mess up and then I would get stuck. And it was like, now what? I'm a failure. I can't cross off my little, my little day on the calendar, which please don't do that. You know, I just felt like it was all for nothing. Yeah. I felt like it was all for nothing, and I had to start over.

SPEAKER_01: 3:23

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no.

SPEAKER_00: 3:26

You don't have a coach that corrected you on that one. I did. And her name, what was her name? Hmm. Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, Heidi. Her name was Heidi. This was one of the first things that you taught me, Heidi, years and years ago, 11 and a half years ago. And it stuck with me and it freed me from being so fearful about getting stuck and having to start over again. That was the end of any starting over again for me. I just kept right on going and I'm still looking and learning. I'm still messing up and I'm doing great. And messing up.

SPEAKER_01: 4:08

Well, sometimes, yes, I am doing great at that. You know, and that's just the thing, to be honest with you, doing great with this whole approach to life, spirit-led life, I think, is being able to take stock of places where there are, you know, just mess ups, sploogies, we call them. Um, and being able to do that well by going to God and inviting him into that and saying, what can I learn from this? And so you are failing well, Christina. I have observed you for 11 and a half years. Oh, you fail well. You fail, girl.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

I am good at failing. Um, that feels great and confusing. No, let's let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, we need to. Let's start here. When you mess up, God doesn't withdraw. What? He doesn't. I mean, this is huge. I thought that when I messed up at really anything, but especially food and eating, that God somehow went like way over there, that he pulled away. That is not true. That is not biblical. That's not who God is. It doesn't line up with his character. How about this? God doesn't roll his eyes. Oh, that's great. I know. Or and he also doesn't say, Oh, Christina, I'm so disappointed in you. No, he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01: 5:41

I can't believe you were you did that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:43

What are you thinking? He doesn't say that either. No, he doesn't sigh, he doesn't shake his head. God is not human, he's God, and he loves us with a supernatural, everlasting, totally grace-infused love. And so that's not him. And if if you might be thinking, but I I think that might be what I believe, listen carefully in this next part.

SPEAKER_01: 6:11

And ask God to reveal his real character to you. Because yeah, and this is one reason why we start people with godless as one of the best ways to renew your mind, is as we get to know what God is really like, as we take stock of what the word says, which is where God reveals what he's like to us, we can jot down what is he really like, and it totally ministers to our hearts in that place where we have attributed to him attributes of very fallible human authority figures. He's nothing like my dad.

SPEAKER_00: 6:45

No, no. I mean, I loved the Lord since I was a little girl, but I have to admit, I had some very wrong, inaccurate views of who he really is. I mean, I I don't know. I think I kind of turned him into a big human for a while there.

SPEAKER_01: 7:03

Yeah, I know I did. And so let's look right now at what the word tells us about what God is, what he's like. Psalm 103, verses 13 and 14. And if you don't have a God list yet, you could take these verses that we're gonna share in this episode and maybe start what is God like and what does he do for people? And just jot those down in a journal page or in your phone. So this verse says, As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. You know, he knows how fragile we are, how fragile I am. He knows how hard the holidays can be. And for those of you who have lost loved ones during the past year, this will be your first holiday season without that loved one. Or maybe you have a child that has wandered away from the faith, and this will be your first season where they're not gonna join you. Uh, whatever it might be, when we turn to him, he will bring us the comfort we need. He calls his Holy Spirit our comforter, and he's also called the God of all comfort. So whether it's related to those relationships that are challenging or food and eating, even after a third helping of mashed potatoes with lots of butter, he welcomes us, he has compassion on us, he has love for us, and he wants us to invite him in to our heartache.

SPEAKER_00: 8:35

That is beautiful, Heidi. I love Psalm 32, verses 1 through 5. It is one of the most beautiful post-failure psalms. And David is writing here: When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy on me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

SPEAKER_01: 9:14

That's who our God is. He's not waiting there with, oh my goodness, I have memories from my childhood and my parents waiting, waiting with the hairbrush or whatever it might be, they're gonna whoop my gosh their end with. He's not like that. He's not waiting with punishment, he's waiting. Get this with pardon. The moment we turn, he meets us. He meets us. In fact, he runs to greet us. I mean, picture that story of the prodigal son and the father. Did the father just stay there on the porch waiting for the son to make his way all the way down the road? No, he ran out to greet him and embraced him and called to everybody to let's slaughter the fatted calf and get the robe and the ring and all that good stuff. Celebrate. He didn't say, Well, you're in for it now, buddy. It's a good thing you finally came home to get what you deserve, right?

SPEAKER_00: 10:12

Heidi, this is a huge shift. This is a huge shift. Failure, then, is not the end of intimacy with God. God hasn't gone anywhere, he's still right there with us. And like you said, he's actually running towards us. Oh, I love that that picture in my mind. And really, it's a new beginning. It's it's something new that God is doing in us. He is always at work, he redeems everything, he doesn't waste our failures. I mean, imagine that being the beginning of something new. That's really what it is.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

Yeah. You know, the only real failure, because the Lord is who he is, the only real failure is when we don't invite him into, because then we miss what he has for us there. And so by inviting him in, we can learn so much from those failures. If the enemy can convince us that messing up means you are out, you're out of here. Go sit on the step or whatever. He's gonna try to isolate you. He is, and that's just the thing is God wants to use your failure, your mess up, your slip, stumble, fall, failure, sploogie to draw you near to him. He wants to use it to show you what you could do next time so that you can experience victory in a very similar situation, which is so beautiful. It's how we get to experience rhythms of grace in our life. If we never failed, we would miss this. And if we don't invite him in, we're gonna miss it. When we fail, let's say, oh, I have an opportunity to learn from the Lord.

SPEAKER_00: 11:55

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I want to share Hosea 6, verse 1. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. And then verse 3 goes on: let us acknowledge the Lord, let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. God wants to be known.

SPEAKER_01: 12:26

He's not holding us at arm's length because of our food mistakes until you get this figured out, child. I'm not going to love on you. Go sit on the step. He's not doing that. He wants us to press in and walk with him through it. Because he's not after behavior modification. No, no, no. He's after transformation that comes to us through renewing our mind and through being in a relationship with him, through coming to him again and again.

SPEAKER_00: 12:59

Well, and that's why mind renewal is so central to what we teach at Revelation Within. It's like the main, main, main thing, not just after a win, but especially after a loss. That's where truth has the most power. Isn't that just like our God?

SPEAKER_01: 13:19

Yes. It's like you don't have to be perfect. Well, but but but no, no buts. Let him redeem the failure, the mess up, the slip. Let him, you know, that sideways, you know, the way we go sideways, he can redeem it. Yes. So what do we say to ourselves in those vulnerable moments when we slipped maybe back into old patterns and want to either hide, which is something I want to do a lot of times, or punish ourselves. You know, can I ever hate myself in a positive change? No, but I sure try.

SPEAKER_00: 13:56

Yeah, we've done that really, really well for decades, haven't we, Heidi? But no more, no more. No more.

SPEAKER_01: 14:03

This, no more. I can honestly say I'm free from that. I mean, when it comes to food and eating, especially, now there are other situations that might come up that I haven't gotten so good at it, but God's showing me, okay, this area needs to also benefit from my grace.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Yeah. We're works in progress constantly. That's what we are. And for me, at least, I know that the more I embrace that, the better that it is. The more that I embrace, I'm a work in progress. That's that's good. That's a good thing. So we have a holiday failure truth list that we would love to share with you. You can borrow it, you can adapt it, you can speak it out loud. I thought Heidi and I could go back and forth on these. Oh, okay. And you can also write your own. But these are truths that will carry you through the holiday season and will carry you through when you stumble. And you will, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 15:04

Yep, it's okay. No, you know what? I just have to say before we do this holiday failure truthless, it's a struggle for many people to hear that it's okay if I fail because of a million reasons, but not the least of which is if I give myself permission to fail, then what's to keep me from just not trying at all? Right. Just whatever. I'm just, it doesn't matter. Yeah, tell tell me about that. Well, how can we how can we be sure that we're not gonna go down that road?

SPEAKER_00: 15:33

When we approach this, like, okay, I am a work in progress, I am going to trip and stumble. Honestly, we live in an imper imperfect world. There is just no way that we can do anything perfectly. We just can't. And so if we're going to God with our struggles and we're asking Him for help and wisdom and grace, we are not going to be in any kind of a posture where we're like, I'm gonna do whatever I want. And honestly, we don't want to do that because we know it doesn't feel good. It brings us down, it drains us. We end up wallowing in a pit of self-pity. We are frustrated, we don't actually want to be there. I have shared this before, but for myself, there were two phrases that I used to hear in my mind all the time. And basically, it was me putting my defenses up, almost like a little kid, you know, like, don't mess with me. The first one was, I don't care. And the second one was, it doesn't matter. Honestly, I didn't believe either of those things. I did care, I cared so much that it hurt, and then I knew that it mattered. I knew that it mattered so much, but I struggled with I have nowhere to go with this. I have nowhere to go. I struggled with that. And so I would put up my fists kind of and say, I don't care. It doesn't matter. What I was really needing to do was go to the Lord and replace those phrases with, God, I need help. Help me to surrender to you. I am your girl. I need something, and food is not giving it to me. I need to be satisfied in you. So it's kind of that place of letting go and being surrendered, and that brings peace. It brings wisdom from God, it brings life. It's the very opposite of what I was describing before, how that brings you down. We don't want to live there anymore. Certainly not in the holidays. We want to live in a place that brings life to our hearts and souls and minds. And that's God's way. We want his way. We really do deep down.

SPEAKER_01: 17:56

And you know what? I feel like the more I've gotten to know what God's character really is like and gotten some distance from the errors that I had in what I thought he was like, it causes me to love him more. And and I mean, I do. My heart just swells with love and appreciation for him as I practice gratitude, as I've as I've shared that, Lord, I love a mind-renewal tool with him, you know, if you know, and and gone on. I find that I'm not all about wanting to just go my own way, like you were saying. I now want to. What would you have me do here, Lord? What would you I want to do? What makes you happy? What causes a little jig in your step, Lord?

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

Okay, so we're we're back to our list. And you again make it your own. Go ahead and write your own. This isn't rocket science, but this might give you an idea of where to begin. Go ahead, Heidi. I am not disqualified by my struggle. Yes, that is a beautiful life-giving truth. How about this one? Romans 8:1. There is no condemnation for me in Christ. None. Zip zero, no condemnation.

SPEAKER_01: 19:13

Yeah, and I mean, a picture saying these after you have had a slip or a stumble, or maybe even in the middle of the slip or stumble. God is not surprised by this moment.

SPEAKER_00: 19:25

He still loves me. Yes, I love this one. Grace is still mine. I'm swimming in it. There, it's unlimited, unlimited.

SPEAKER_01: 19:38

Jesus is still my shepherd, even in this valley.

SPEAKER_00: 19:42

Yes, and this is not the end of the story. Not at all. It might be the beginning of a brand new story for me.

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

Yes, and then Philippians 1:6. He who began a good work in me promises he's going to carry it on to completion. I love that promise.

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

How about this? I can run to God, not from him. God is with me right now. Lord, I'm turning to you right in this moment. Let's talk about this and then boom, move on. It's over.

SPEAKER_01: 20:15

And if I am relating to him like I did my parents, okay, and in my case, that wouldn't have been an accurate picture of God at all, of course, I'm not gonna want to run to him. But that's a really good indication that my perspective on what God is like and what he does for people, how he operates in my life is in error. And so if I really understand that God is who he says he is, and I am who he says I am, I run to him. I want to run to him rather than from him. I mean, as a child growing up, I wanted to run from my parents, but I want to run to the Lord. I'm so grateful for that. You know, you can take that list and add a few of your own truths to it. You can stick it on your bathroom mirror, or you can even record it as a voice memo so that you can listen to it on repeat if you want to while you're driving in your car going somewhere or coming back from somewhere. Just don't let the enemy have the last word when you fall. Let God's truth speak louder, okay?

SPEAKER_00: 21:22

Yes, yes, yes, definitely. Okay, so we say this a lot, but it bears repeating. Your value does not hang in the balance of your holiday food choices. It does not. Your identity in Christ is a done deal. If you have accepted Christ into your heart, it's a done deal. It's over with. It is not gonna change. You are God's girl or God's guy, no matter what you do or don't do. That's not where your value or worth comes from. It's not.

SPEAKER_01: 21:59

Here's the truth, though, that these truths that we're talking about can feel really elusive or even untrue. If you've spent your whole life trying to earn your worth through your appearance or your weight or your willpower or your ability to stick to a plan or anything else, it can feel like these things that we're sharing with you aren't true. Check the word of God out and see what it says, and then tell yourself that truth that you find in the word of God over and over and over again. We get to choose what we think, and what we think is going to establish our beliefs, and what we believe is going to establish our actions. And so we want to think what is true according to God, and his word is full of that.

SPEAKER_00: 22:46

It is. How about Colossians 2, verses 20 to 23? Paul writes, Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belong to the world, do you submit to its rules? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. These rules are based merely on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. That one hits hard. It does. It's like, wait, is that really in the Bible? Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

It is. You know, the law can't transform us, rules can't change our hearts. No, only Jesus can do that, and that's what he wants to do. Only a renewed mind filled with the truth from the Lord is gonna produce lasting peace and freedom. That's all there is to it.

SPEAKER_00: 23:49

That's it's so true. It's so true. And those of us that have been chasing after it on our own for years and years and years, we know there's more to it than that. We can't do it on our own. Titus 2, verses 11 and 12 says, For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

SPEAKER_01: 24:22

Grace is not a past, it's a teacher. And you know, it's true. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, to live a self-controlled, upright, and godly life. And I think that's a beautiful truth. So often we think of grace as a excuse. You know, I think it's in Romans 6 where Paul says, So shall I sin all the more so that grace may increase? And depending upon which translation you're reading from, it might say, Absolutely not, no way. Grace is not a pass, it's a teacher. No, it's gonna keep showing up in your life this holiday season, isn't that awesome?

SPEAKER_00: 25:03

Not to shame you, but to shape you, to shame that it's beautiful. Imagine, imagine, I mean, what if every single time you struggled, stumbled, messed up, you spent a few minutes with the Lord. Imagine that this holiday season. What would that? I mean, wow, would that just change your whole holiday season? So even if you mess up today, what if you're messing up right now? It could be even while you're listening and you're not hungry. Today, right now, tell yourself, I have a plan. I know what I'm gonna do when I'm gonna mess up. I'm gonna turn to Jesus. Let his truth reset your thoughts and let his love restore your heart.

SPEAKER_01: 25:57

I love that. Psalm 34, 18 says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Don't you just love him so?

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

That's what he's like. That is that's what he's really like. Yes. Okay, so be sure to come next week. We're gonna talk about navigating relationships and difficult people during the holidays. Do we know anybody that's not wanna do that? Let's just talk about other things. No, yeah, um, we're gonna talk about navigating relationships without overeating or isolating. This is a big one. You don't want to miss it. This is huge.

SPEAKER_01: 26:43

Oh, okay. Until then, let's walk in grace, let's run to truth and let's renew our minds as many times as we can.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

We could never do it too much. Yes, that's right. Because God's mercies really are new every morning, even after pie and mashed potatoes. Too much of them. All right. We are so glad that you've been here today, and we would love to invite you to come to our next podcast, Revelation Within.