Find Freedom from the Fight with Food, with Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller and Heather Creekmore

Food—it can be a source of joy, fellowship, and energy, but it can also bring shame, guilt, and frustration. Find freedom in your fight with food with this week's episode of Grounded, featuring guests Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller and Heather Creekmore.

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Episode Notes

How to Let Go of Your Food and Weight Obsession book by Meredith Terpeluk Schoeller

Compared to Who? book by Heather Creekmore 

Fasting and Feasting book by Erin Davis 

“How Comfort Food Poses as Spiritual Food” blog post by Monica Hall

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Portia Collins: Okay, I'm just gonna say them: food, and diet. If those words feel like the enemy, then this episode of Grounded is for you. I'm Portia Collins.

Erin Davis: Hope I didn't lose anybody there, P. I'm Erin Davis. And maybe those are two of your favorite words. That's true. For me, at least the food part, not so much the diet part. But I talk often about the fact that I am a foodie. We've been laughing about maybe having a Grounded cookbook someday. 

So, if you do love food, you love to talk about it. You love to think about it. Maybe not so much dieting. This episode is also for you. 

But I’ve got to start with a confession, this is an area of my life . . . I bet you are going to agree. If so say so in the comments. But it can be a source of tremendous joy of fellowship. I mean, some of my best memories involve gathering around food. 

Energy comes from food, right? And shame and guilt and frustration. I can't see if you're nodding your head Grounded sisters, but I have a feeling that you are so you're gonna have to let us know in the comments. Do you have those dual reactions to this topic? I bet you do.

Portia: Yes. You see me over here, nodding my head.

Erin: You’re nodding your head for all women everywhere, Portia.

Portia: Everywhere. I mean, I was like even getting the words out like January. This is exactly where, in fact, my mind went here in December, thinking about food and diets. Oh, it's early January, and we know what that means. Every company that has a protein shake or weight loss plan or a supplement has a sale. They are coming for you, and they're promising peace. And you know, this episode kicks off a month-long theme redeeming self-help. 

We want to zoom in on what God's Word actually says about these topics that everybody else in the world is shouting so loudly about.

Erin: We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don't want to just say “Ah, nothing about self-help is helpful,” because there are some areas of our life where we probably need some change. So we want to know what God's Word actually says. 

I think the answer is going to surprise you. It has been surprising to me as we've worked on this episode. Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller is with us. Meredith went into treatment for food and other addictions. And, she discovered profound freedom in Christ. 

I was on her podcast recently. And so, I can say you're just gonna love her. It's like having a conversation with that fantastic friend, but she uses the Word of God and God's work in her life. So, it's gonna be a really riveting conversation.

Portia: And we've got Heather Creekmore, also with us. She is a returning guest. We will drop a link to her previous episode on comparison. Today, she's gonna help us think about what Jesus meant when he told us not to worry about what we eat and what we drink.

Erin: Yeah, I mean, Jesus said it. What did He mean by all of that? So, this is the conversation you're not going to find anywhere else. Instagram can kind of like read into your innermost thoughts. It's always feeding me before and after weight loss pictures. So, there's nothing there that I'm interested in and it knows it. I must linger there for a while. But I haven't heard that conversation that we're going to have here today. 

I don't know a single woman who doesn't need some hope and perspective for her relationship with food. We're here to bring it. 

So, share this episode. We depend on you to do that for every woman in your life—your mama, your sister, your friends. They're all trying to sift through the world's messaging on food. We want to give her something else to chew on to what I did there. So hit that share button, send it out to your group of friends in a text, whatever you got to do. 

And if you're a Grounded regular welcome, you know what comes next. If you're a Grounded newbie, welcome. We hope many of you find this in 2023. But every episode starts with some good news, and I know just the woman to bring it to us. Dannah, are you with us this morning?

10:09 – Good News

Dannah Gresh: I am, good morning. And you know, when you were talking about memories, Erin, the thing that flashed into my head was the food fight at my house when you were in there for a pool party, when you were in high school.

Erin: It did happen. 

Dannah: Why is it that baked beans and coleslaw came to my mind when I thought of sweet memories?

Erin: It was a really messy food fight. I was a teenager, and you and Bob found the sloppiest food to throw.

Dannah: Right? Yeah, it was fun until I was trying to get coleslaw out of my screen door between my deck and my kitchen for like a month.

Erin: It doesn’t go through a screen by the way. 

Dannah: And my house smelled like baked beans. 

Erin: Good memory. It was a good memory. Well, welcome to 2023 friends. My good news today is a celebration, centuries old, Happy Epiphany. 

Friday was the day marked by many faith traditions as a celebration of the incarnation of Jesus, and it's called Epiphany Day. It's associated with the remembrance of the wise men of the East traveling with their gifts for Jesus.

Now, it is a good thing they had that started to get them going in the right direction. As we start the new year, we're all hoping it's going to be a good one. Some people are turning to, let's call them interesting things, to ensure that they are headed in the right direction. 

The stars for example, 26% of Americans believe in astrology. That, by the way, is certainly not the good news. That is an exclamation point, a warning sign. Astrology is a type of divination my friend. It uses the sun, the moon, and the stars to forecast earthly and human events. And Leviticus 19:26 says do not practice divination. 

Even so, some people watch their zodiac sign like it's their job, or as if their life depends on it. It doesn't. I have proof. Here it is. 

Check out this photograph of my twin granddaughters Addy and Zoe. And you might say, “Dannah, did you just change subjects?” No, I didn't. Augustin warned against astrology and divination. He reasoned that it just didn't make sense. He wrote this, 

Why in the life of twins in their actions, the events that befall them, their profession, arts, honors, and other things pertaining to human life, as well as in their very deaths is they're often so great a difference that as far as these things are concerned. Many entire strangers are more like them, then they are like each other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of time, but at conception, generated by the same act and at the same moment. 

Why indeed? Yes, twins are definitely proof that God, not the stars, is the One in charge of the direction of our lives. 

You might say, but what about those three wise men that followed Jesus? Didn't they use a star? Weren't they astrologers? Well, that's debatable. But even if they were, wouldn't that just prove that even pagans are called to worship Christ at the time after He was born? 

It could be that blatant violators of the Old Testament law were coming to worship Jesus being wooed by Him called by that star, but I don't think they were using astrology. It seems to me that God just wouldn't use something He forbade for such a holy, magnificent purpose. 

So, what was that star that led the wise man to Jesus? 

Well, to be honest, we don't know. But I do have a lot of fun hypothesizing and wondering. I've wondered if it could be a conjunction of stars or a supernova if you, unlike me, are not a star geek and love looking at the skies. Look at those two things—the conjunction of stars or supernova. Very possible. 

Some people think, and this is awesome, that it may have been the literal glory of God shining so brightly from Bethlehem that those men saw it. Or perhaps it was those angels in a field, lighting it up and speaking to the shepherds, “glory to God.” Again, we just don't know. 

And the fact is that some things this side of heaven will remain a mystery. But we do know this. The purpose of whatever it was that drew them was to get them to Jesus. 

You want to get headed in the right direction in 2023? I’ve got a star for you to follow. Jesus is the light of the world. The Star capital S, that leads us to the Father. 

Revelation 22, verse 16, speaking of Jesus reads, “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” 

Jesus is the star. He's the one that came to this earth to be the bright morning star to lead us in our darkness to the Father. As we start this new year, that is the best good news you'll ever hear my friend. I do not know what 2023 looks like for you, but He does. Follow Him. Portia.

Portia: Amen. Way to get us fired up and ready for 2023, with Jesus pointing us to Jesus, I love it. Dannah. 

Dannah: Let's do it. Let's follow Him. 

15:15 – Grounded with God's People (Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller)

Portia: Yes, absolutely. Well, it's time to get grounded with God's people. Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller is with us. Like so many women, Meredith was stuck in an obsessive cycle with food and weight. It all started as a little girl. And so today, she helps women walk in freedom. I'd like to welcome her. Welcome to Grounded, Meredith.

Meredith Terpeluck Schoeller: Thank you.

Portia: So happy to have you. Look, I'm excited about this. I want to jump in because I’ve got so much I want to ask you. I know that everybody is tuned in right now. So many years ago, you actually entered a 12-step program to seek treatment for your food addiction. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Meredith: I did. It was actually 14 years ago. I was actually in grad school in South Bend, Indiana. And long story short, I had just hit the end of my obsession with food. I was running like crazy, eating like crazy. I got on my knees one day. I grew up Catholic, but I got on my knees that day, and that is when I met Jesus. 

I had beaten myself up for so many years with this food. He led me to treatment, and I walked out of there. That obviously changed my life. 

Portia: All right. So in your book, you wrote something that kind of sets the stage for this conversation. Correct me if I get it wrong, but you said, this has always been about your heart, not the food or weight, and the only one who can fix that is God. Why are our food issues, ultimately heart issues?

Meredith: Because it's about the reason we turned to the food. So, what is that? What's going on in our hearts because the world, as you guys mentioned, wants us to focus on the diets and the next shake, and this is going to be the fix. The world wants us to fix ourselves. 

But what does the devil want us to never do? Turn to Jesus. He never wants us to look inside and look at our hearts. So, if we keep our eyes focused on consuming the food or fixing our weight, we never get to our hearts. I found when I put down the food, that is when my heart issues come up. And that's when the Lord starts to heal me.

Portia: Yeah. 

Meredith: Whenever I see someone struggling, I'm like, “Okay, what's going on? What's going on behind that? What's going on beneath that? What's making you use the food the way you do?” It could be something happening right now. Or like for me, my parents got divorced when I was eight. I went to treatment when I was 31. So, it's like I walked into treatment. It was like, “You're gonna deal with your parents’ divorce,” and it all just came down. I had to put down those foods I was escaping with, and that's when it all came up.

Portia: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I often think about how I jokingly say, “Oh, I'm an emotional eater.” That in itself shows that our food, our habits with food, for many of us, is tied to our heart issues. And so, I'm glad that you pointed that out. 

Most women I know, and I'm talking specifically about Christian women, have issues with food and weight. Like, I'm thinking if I had to group all of my friends, the majority of us would agree we all at some point have had issues with food and weight. 

It's super normalized. And I guess the question here is, is it even possible to change those patterns that are just so ingrained in us?

Meredith: I think it is. That's why I wrote my book, because I think it is seeing as a Christian woman, that God is . . . We always say He's a God of the details. He is also a part of this part of our life. What is it He wants to be the strength in our weakness, yet what the world wants us to fix this weakness we have with food. He's going, “Okay, so you struggle with the Oreos? Will you let Me help you?” You know, I just don't think we do that. We put Him all over life. But sometimes with the food, it's like we forget, even those little details. He's like, “Well, you just come to Me. I know you've been going to the Oreos for two weeks. Can I help?” 

Portia: I love it. I love it. I love it. So let me ask you this. What does it look like to turn weight and food and our relationship with them over to God?

Meredith: To me, it's getting honest with yourself about what it is you're obsessing about. That's why I have obsessive in my title, because are you obsessing about that number on the scale? Or is it making sure you're perfect with your food? And then you wonder, Why I've been perfect trying to be perfect with my food for 10 years, and I haven't got it right.

And to me, and some people may think this is crazy, but I don't think it's that crazy is it helps if you really struggle with an area, that you find either two options when you find someone like a nutritionist who knows better than you what you need. Because we all have studied this so much. We all think we're experts, but we are not professional experts on this. 

So, finding someone that's like this is what you really need, because we tend to restrict or overeat. Or going back when I just finished a beta Bible study on my book. I had a number of women say, “This program really works for me.” And I'm like, “Well, maybe you need to just get back to what the food program that really works so that God can do and work in you. Stop messing with it.” 

Portia: I love it. I love how you keep it real. That resonates, the obsessing, like I'm either in high gear, doing everything right, or I am overeating, and I'm doing everything wrong. And yes, it's an obsession. That's the best way that I could characterize that type of behavior. It's like I'm obsessing so much that I'm counting the calories. I'm on the treadmill. And then, like I say, if it's not that I deviate, and I go all the way to the other end of the spectrum. And so one of the things that I want to ask you is you use the word recovery to describe your relationship with food now. And so what does it mean to be in food addiction recovery?

Meredith: Well, for me, it is having a support community. What addictions are are isolators. The enemy wants that. They're just saying the enemy wants to get us alone and kill us. So, we need to connect with others. So, for me, I have a community that I can exploit. There's something called Overeaters Anonymous. There's one specific program that I work with. I think it's sometimes finding the right program, but it's also and that's part of the reason I have my book, because it is finding women in your church that are willing to be real about that struggle. People who say, “Her book helped me, or this helps me.” I need to keep facing this as a heart issue, not a physical issue. Because people that are just looking at before and after pictures and want to look like their best friend and be on her diet are not going to want to go deep, because they want to keep it on the surface. 

So, for me, recovery is for me. Sugar and flour are my two things that I don't pick up. My best friend is a baker. It's hilarious, because she'll be like, “You can't speak my love language.” And I'm like, “You know I love you. I show it in other ways.” I just say to her, “Honey, I am more free not picking up that amazing cookie you made than I am if I eat one. Because if I eat one then I need to go back, and I need to come to you, and I need them for the next year. So, I'd rather be free being with you because I can't when I am in that sugar in that food. I can't be present.” 

That's what I think God has done in me. When I had my little girl three years ago, it was like He wanted to just clear me even more. I was like He said, “Meredith, I don't want you to pass this down to your daughter. Break that generational curse.”

Portia: You know, what I think is super interesting as I'm sitting here listening to you, I can almost hear a woman saying, “Well, I don't really have food addiction, or I don't really have a problem with food.” But I do think it's a fact that all of us have some type of a relationship with food that oftentimes I would say we probably need to pause and examine. 

And so, I want to ask, is there a specific passage of Scripture that has been particularly meaningful in your own journey with food? Do you have a passage of Scripture that you can share with us today?

Meredith: Absolutely, it's actually two, and they're very similar. There's only one word off, but they're both in 1 Corinthians. And the first one is, “I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive.” And the next one is chapter 6, verse 12, “I have the right to do anything you say. But not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but I will not be mastered by anything.” 

“Mastered” and that is when the Lord just . . . I mean, it's like my husband went and laid down my daughter one night (I had an eight-month-old). I just got into the Word on a Saturday night, and I had no interest. I had no interest in writing this book and working on my food issue anymore. I was like, “Okay, fine. I had a baby. This is my body.” I had I had her after I turned 40. And the Lord was like, “You’re not done.” He gave me those two verses. 

What's funny is He always had given me those two, but I never knew what they were for. And then it was like that night, He just gave me those two. And I was like, “Okay, got it. Okay, no more.” It's not constructive for me. I may be able to eat whatever I want, but is it constructive for me? And oh, man, there are certain foods that absolutely master me. 

And I'm done. Those were the two that just stopped me in my tracks, and just kind of reset me, because He's like, “You need to be free. And there are many more women that need to be free too.” He gave me other verses about freedom in Christ versus, food freedom. And you know how some people are like, “I can eat this. I can't eat this.” 

Portia: Yeah.

Meredith: Go to Him. We have to look at if that brings that relationship with food into your relationship with the Father so He can feed you like He does. And show you where you're not focused on Him. 

Portia: Yes. What a dose of hope. Just to hear that focus on Him. Allow Him to like direct you even in your food decisions. I think that is spot on, Meredith, spot on. 

Well, thank you so much for being with us. We are going to drop a link to your book. Give me the title of your book. 

Meredith: How to Let Go of Your Food and Weight Obsession: A Guide for the Woman Who Wants More for Her Life.

Portia: Okay, thank you. I was about to butcher that. I will drop a link to it in the chat and the show notes. I'm just grateful. This was helpful for me, and I think this is a good way for me to start my year starting 2023.

Meredith: Good. Awesome. I'm so glad. Thank you. 

Portia: Take care. 

Meredith: You, too. 

Dannah: Good conversation. I got chills. Portia, it's not time to get grounded in God's Word yet, Erin's gonna be doing that shortly. But I know what passage she's going into. You guys were just in that passage. I just feel like when we get deeper and deeper into certain passages that God really wants to have something to say to us. 

28:23 – Grounded with God's People (Heather Creekmore)

And certainly, I already feel like you guys stepped on my toes a few times. Our next guests might look familiar if you've ever seen the show Nailed It. It's a wacky baking show on Netflix, kind of like the opposite of the Great British Baking Show. The food doesn't turn out looking amazing. Amateur bakers who have poor track records attempt to redeem their reputations by recreating baking works of art. Heather Creekmore, the host of the podcast Compared to Who? got a spot on that show. Welcome to Grounded Heather Creekmore.

Heather Creekmore: Oh, Dannah, it's great to be with you. 

Dannah: Hey, I gotta know. Did you win on Nailed It? 

Heather: Oh, I did not. Well, I won the first round. I'm not sure if anyone's really a winner on that show.

Dannah: Well, I actually have a picture of the cake you were trying to replicate. And the one you made? Can I go ahead and show it? Well, too late to ask permission. On the left, you see the beautiful cake. And on the right is Heather's nailed it cake. I think I probably would have come up with a cake that looks a whole lot more like yours if I had been on the show.

Heather: Thanks, Dannah. 

Dannah: Well, Heather may have failed as a Netflix Baker. But she is a Grounded winner because this woman is rooted in God's Word. She's going to help us think through some of Jesus's words about food. Heather, Meredith and Portia just took a broad kind of look at food, but they mentioned something that is a real specific area of problem for a lot of us. Meredith said she stays away from bread and sugar. Today, I want to talk about bread because I think today's women have a true love-hate relationship with it. At least I do. Am I alone?

Heather: No, you're absolutely not alone, Dannah. In fact, it's interesting. If you look back through history, there's only three macronutrients: there's carbohydrates, there's fat, and there's protein. As a culture, we've kind of been on this roller coaster ride of one food is the star, and one food is demonized as the enemy. Right. And so we're in right now in 2023 and bread is the enemy. Bread is the devil. I don't know about you. But I remember back in the 1990s, we were eating fat free, right? 

Dannah: That was the enemy, right. Take it out of everything.

Heather: Right. I would not have touched that. 

Dannah: They took away our flavor, so they had to replace it with sugar.

Heather: Right. Right. 

Dannah: Not good.

Heather: There's been so much manipulation, not just with our food, but I think also with the way we think about food. It's interesting to kind of follow the patterns, if you look back, you can see remember in the 1980s Special K was going to help us all lose weight? Now in 2023, that's laughable, right? Cereal? How’s cereal going to help you lose weight?

Dannah: I like my Special K. Don't say that.

Heather: That's my point. We've been jerked around. We have sort of this cultural food schizophrenia, where we go from this trend to this trend to this trend. I think our hearts may be in the right place. Right? We desire health, where we think we're following the trend or the truth of the day. 

But Dannah, I think we have to remember that these are little “t” truths that we're following, right that the science of the day keeps changing. Eggs are bad, eggs are good, eggs bad, eggs are good. And if we rely on our Instagram and YouTube influencers to lead us in a way of health, we're gonna be jerked around a little bit and we might be missing what God's truth is about all of this food. 

Dannah: Yeah, God made the eggs, God made the protein, God made the fat God made the grains that make the bread. So let me ask this before we get into the food, the bread topic too much. Have you struggled with bread?

Heather: Yes, absolutely. In fact, so I've struggled with food in general, since the third grade. I started dieting in middle school. 

Dannah: Wow. 

Heather: And I have followed every trend there was. If I could cut something out and change my body to be more like a body I wanted it to be, I was first in line to try that trend. 

But bread is specifically . . . I remember when bread first went kind of out of fashion. I was happy to hop on the no bread train. Then I was actually diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder when I turned 40. 

And the doctor said, you need to cut out bread and you need to be gluten free, and so I was gluten free for a number of years. And ironically, Dannah, I've introduced gluten back and my health is better than it was. The numbers, those autoimmune numbers, those ticker marks around my thyroid and my adrenal system are actually better since I've introduced gluten back. 

Now, I never had celiac disease. That's not to say that people do have legitimate medical problems with gluten. Absolutely, they do. And not everyone's story is the same as mine. But for me, specifically, I recognized that this particular trend of being gluten free wasn't what was best for my bio unique body.

Dannah: I love that, your bio unique body. I've never heard that before. Explain what that means. What do you mean by that?

Heather: We all have a different genetic composition, right? There are some things that will be great for your body to eat, that won't feel good for my body. Some of that is, like I said, just genes, some of it is history, and things we've gone through, things we've experienced, the condition of our bodies will relate to.

Dannah: The age of our bodies, the blood type. We carry all those things into how we respond to what we put in them. 

Heather: Right. And that's why it's so dangerous to follow the trends of the day because they might not have the same bio unique body. You too.

Dannah: So, the Bible doesn't tell us should you eat gluten or should you not eat gluten? It doesn't tell us should you eat Wonder Bread and donuts? Yeah, that's my stronghold right there, donuts. I've said it, we can talk. Let's see, we're being honest now. There are certain things that we just think I have to avoid it all together. And we kind of have these knee jerk reactions, but our food rules, and these food trends need to be taken to the foot of the cross. What does Jesus tell us about them?

Heather: I like to think about Matthew 15:11, where Jesus tells us it's not what goes into a man, the man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his heart. Right. 

And I think for many of us, Christian women, trying to be good stewards of our body trying to treat our bodies like the temple of the Holy Spirit. I think we've confused food and diet culture righteousness with true biblical righteousness. It's not the way we eat that makes us holy or good or acceptable. Right? That's kind of a false religion in a way. 

Dannah: Yeah. 

Heather: Jesus says that He's the bread of life. There are more than I know, there's at least 16. But there's way more than those verses in the Bible where He talks about that as a faction and relates being satisfied in Him to the way we are physically satisfied with food. 

And Dannah, my life as a dieter, as a chronic dieter for decades, food was never satisfying. In fact, it felt wrong. If food was satisfying, it was like I was doing something bad that food was satisfying me. And that's so opposite from I think the way God intended for food to be in our lives. I don't think He's mad at us for enjoying delicious food that he created. 

Now, can we take that to an extreme? Of course, we can make food an idol. But for most of the women I work with and talk to as I coach women, especially women coming out of eating disorders, there's this heart problem of feeling like it's okay to enjoy food. And that's something I think we need to free ourselves from.

Dannah: You know, I think that if Jesus said, I am the bread of life, there is this understanding that we should sit down to a table of bread and be fully aware that we can be in the presence of God. And at the same time, it can also be a fact that some of the bread we eat is so processed and so void of nutrients that it's not the kind of bread that Jesus was probably referring to when He said that that statement, so there has to be some discernment. 

I found that I can't eat some of those white breads. I have to focus on those healthier grains. We're not throwing that discernment out. We're just saying, let's have a deeper look at what the Scriptures say about how we approach holiness and righteousness and goodness, rather than just jumping on to the trends. 

Tell me if someone is listening and they are struggling and they're like, “I'm trying to figure out. I'm confused. like I heard intermittent fasting this morning.” They're listening to the little “t” truth about food without surrendering to the big “T” truth of Jesus. Where does she begin to gain biblical perspective and kind of get away from the fray of the confusing messages?

Heather: I think, Dannah, just stopping and recognizing how jerked around we've been, is a good place to start. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and again expecting different results. That's what we do. A new diet trend comes, maybe this will be the one, and we follow it. What I think we're looking for, as Meredith said in the last segment, we're looking for something to change our hearts. We're looking for salvation, we're looking for freedom, we're really looking for rest. No one goes on a diet hoping to be on a diet for the rest of their life. 

You go on a diet hoping that after the diet you can rest, you can stop thinking about food and worrying about food and just be able to be right. That's what we longed for. But that's never going to come from a food plan or even an exercise plan. It's only going to come from Jesus—that rest, that satisfaction, that peace is only found in Him. I think if we seek Him first, as Scripture tells us, then all these things will be added to us. Then He can help us guide us and direct us in the complex and messy matters of what is true about food for my body? What is true about the way I should eat? What is true about the way I should exercise? He's the best divine dietitian we could imagine.

Dannah: And He is the Bread of Life. Thank you, Heather Creekmore. 

Heather: My pleasure.

Dannah: Heather has written a book titled Compared to Who? A Proven Path to Improve Your Body Image, we'll put a link in the show notes. 

As we begin this new year, it's my pattern to fast. And one of the reasons I do that is so that I remember that Jesus is the Bread of Life, that I need Him more than I need anything else. And so, I put the bread and everything else aside, and I feast on Him. 

It's one way that I really push reset on all my disciplines, somehow establishing self-control near food floods over into self-control in all the areas of my life. When my appetite for food is under the control of the Spirit, my other appetites are under His authority in a really unique way. Now each year, I read a book during my fast, and this year, it's written by someone you know and love, so I thought maybe I would recommend it to you. The author is Erin Davis. The book is titled Fasting and Feasting. It's a series of devos on the topic of fasting and feasting, and it's helping me to look at food as a blessing from God, I want you to hear me on this. If we want to achieve freedom in the area of food, we can't just focus on what not to eat. We have to experience what we can eat as a wonderful gift from God. 

Anyway, that's what Erin's book is outlining for my heart. She outlines it so beautifully. So, I suggested to Erin that she might balance out our perspective on food by giving us a little scriptural snack from her book. Grab your Bibles. Erin, what passage are we looking at together this morning.

41:37 – Grounded in God's Word (1 Cor. 6:12–20)

Erin: It thrills my heart data that you're using fasting and feasting in your annual fast. I love that discipline. I love that you do it. I follow your lead there. And maybe that is something as you're listening to this, maybe that's your one take it home. Maybe you need to start this year. I know we're only about a week in. There's still time to make a decision to change. Maybe you want to consider fasting. It's a discipline that the Lord gives us as a gift. Here's the line I wish I would have put in that book, “Fasting is feasting.”

Dannah: It is. 

Erin: So, it is an opportunity to really feast with the Lord, so I'll be joining you in that. Well, we're going to be where we've been, which I love when the Lord orchestrates things that way. We're going to stay in 1 Corinthians 6. Meredith mentioned it, and I'm going to try to take us on a deep dive quickly. It's always good to get the lay of the land when you open your Bible. 

And so, remember that this was written by Paul to Christians, Christians in the city of Corinth. It's really important to remember that as we read his words, because these are for those of us who are in Christ. 

Let me start by reading a chunk of Scripture here. Stick with me, read along with me. Then we'll break it down. I'm in 1 Corinthians 6. I'm going to read you 12 through 20. 

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. [Meredith used the word “master.” That's from a different translation.] 

"Food is meant for the stomach and stomach for food" [pay attention that that's in quotation marks. We'll tell you why in a minute] and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.” 

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Never! [With an exclamation point, my Bible has one there.]

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her. For as it is written, "the two shall become one flesh.” 

But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

There's a lot going on here in this passage. But if I were to ask you to write down the two primary themes of what Paul was addressing to the church in Corinth, I hope you'd come up with these two things: sex and food. What odd bedfellows, if you think about it. But are they? Listen to Paul's firm reminder, once again, it's in verse 19. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God?” 

Now, this is an often-quoted verse, often we drop the verses around it where Paul is more direct and coming at their sexual sin. And it's for good reason that we quote it so often. Paul was warning the Corinthians and us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to steer clear of sexual sin. While all sin separates us from God, sin is unique in the way it violates God's best for our bodies. But pay attention to how this verse is used among modern Christians. 

Those who are fitness minded will often say my body is a temple as their reasoning for drinking those kale smoothies in steering clear of sugar. And the not-so-healthy eaters will joke like, “Oh, my body is a temple” as our way of sheepishly acknowledging I probably shouldn't be eating this. 

But Paul's simple reference wasn't about food, right? 

Well, the more I sit in this passage, the more I see that the answer to that question is yes, and no. If we extract single verses from the bigger narrative of Scripture, it's easy to miss that Paul wrote these words, these two themes, as one train of thought—a more daily and insignificant, he started with food, and then he pivoted to our sexuality. 

Now, food is a more daily and seemingly insignificant area of our lives than our sexuality. It's an area where our beliefs and behaviors often go sideways. In the book, I call it a “tiger in a box.” You have to take that tiger out and feed him at least three times a day, and then somehow you have to get the tiger back in the box. And he very often bites back. But listen to verse 13. Again, “food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. 

Now, that's in quotes. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” Dannah helped me understand why, because this was a saying, a colloquial saying, that they would throw around. Kind of like “our friends with benefit.” And men, if you have a desire. In other words, if you have a sexual desire, if there's something you crave, sexually, you need to take care of it. The Greek culture believed that the body was not eternal, only the spirit. So, they were free to do what they wanted. We see this in other Paul's letters where he's saying, “By no means don't abuse grace.” 

But notice how he paired submitting our sexual desires to the authority of Scripture, to submitting our other appetites. We don't just have sexual appetites to the authority of Scripture. Knowing that context makes it feel like less of a hard turn from sexual sin, from food to sexual sin and sleeping with prostitutes. 

Verse 15, he says, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Never!”

Remember, he started with food. Now he's talking about sleeping with prostitutes? How are the threads connected?

Well, here's my theory. What we think about food tends to reveal what we really think about everything else. Said another way, if we think our body is permitted to have anything and everything that it craves when it comes to food, we will tend to apply that thinking to all other sorts of things. If we tend to think I deserve it, we will tend to think that in other areas of our life. When we tend to think, “Oh, I've been ‘so good,’ quote, unquote, now I just want to be ‘a little bit bad,’ quote, unquote,” will apply that same thinking to all sorts of other things. 

So, look at the passage one more time, maybe in your quiet time with the Lord today. Use food as a grid to consider these themes. Maybe write these questions down. There is a better question than what is allowed. Are you allowed to eat anything that comes across your table? Yeah, I guess you're allowed. The question isn't what's allowed. The question is what is best? 

I have a little object lesson sitting on my desk this whole time. I say this with humility, but I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the whole world. I made some for a little party we went to this weekend. Am I allowed to eat this cookie? Yeah, I'm allowed. My salvation isn't tied to it. I can, only I can't just eat one. I'll eat one and feel okay. And then I'll eat another one and a headache will start right here. And then I'll eat another one, and I will start yelling at my kids. I don't know why that's what happens. But that's what happens every time. 

So, is eating my chocolate chip cookies allowed? Sure, it is. Is it what's best? It's not. 

Here's another question for you to think through in relation to this passage. Are you a follower of Jesus who's mastered by something? Are you a follower of Jesus who's mastered by anything? Then, you need Spirit fueled self-control. It can be the coffee in your cup. It can be the cookie you have with the coffee in your cup. It can be any number of things. What is it that masters you that you lose control. You don't need self-control there. You need Holy Spirit control. 

And our bodies, this is the other thought that Paul brings up. Our bodies in this fallen state, they're temporary. And so, you're called to live for what's eternal. 

Fourth thing, remember when you read this passage and as you go about your day, you belong to Jesus—body, soul, and spirit. 

Food becomes about stewardship. As followers of Jesus, I write on my to-do list every single week, take care of your body, you only get one. That's not about me obsessing over my weight or obsessing over my body. That's about me, stewarding the body God's given me so that I can live for eternity and do the things that God's called me to do. 

So, if you're not living out these truths in your daily approach to food, and I'm pointing one finger at you, and several back at me, although I gotta say, the Lord has done a tremendous work in my life in this area of my life. I don't struggle like I did for so many years. Don't buy the lie that it always has to be that way. 

But if we're not living out these truths in our daily approach to food, we're probably not living them out elsewhere. Wrong thinking about God and food is often wrong thinking about God and sex, God and rest, God and exercise, you get the idea. Your body is a temple. It's not an invitation to shape yourself into a perfect physical specimen. It is a reminder that Jesus lives in you. The supernatural metaphysical reality is evident. It should be evident in the ways we live our natural physical lives. 

So, what we eat, who we sleep with, what we say, what we watch, where we go, and what we drink, when we get there, these are all opportunities to declare one heart-shaping, world-changing, life-transforming truth. 

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You're not your own, where you are bought with a price. So, glorify God with your body, Portia.

Portia: Erin Davis, you had me locked in. I honestly had to remember, “Oh, I got other stuff to do.” 

Erin: Those are my favorite Grounded, when I forget I’m the host.

Portia: Like, I am like ready to go dig into my Bible, like you took it straight. Like you took us to the Word, and you reiterated something that Meredith had said from the start about how our food issues are really heart issues. Man, that blessed me, blessed my socks off. 

Erin: Good.

Portia: So, thank you. 

Well, now we want to put in a little bit more. We are stuffing your knapsack. Really, it's full today, y'all, and we're gonna put a little bit more in there—tools to stay grounded. We've already covered some good ones. I'm going to quickly recap. Meredith’s this book, and I'm not gonna mess it up this time, How to Let Go of Your Food and Weight Obsession. We'll drop a link to that in the show notes and the chat. 

Also, Heather Creekmore’s book Compared to Who? We will link to that in the show notes in the chat. And Dannah has already mentioned it, but I want to go in and high five and reiterate as well Erin's book, Fasting and Feasting. We're gonna drop a link as well in the show notes in the chat. We want you to check it out. 

And finally, I want to point you to a Revive Our Hearts blog post. It is titled “How Comfort Food Poses as Spiritual Food.”This is a tool to help you think about the heart issues—what we've been saying this entire episode, the heart issues behind your food issues. We're going to drop a link to that as well in the chat and the show notes.

Dannah: Okay, Erin Davis, I got to ask what kind of cookie was that you were holding up? Was it one of your famous chocolate chip cookies? 

Erin: It was. It’s still here too. It just sat here the whole episode.

Dannah: You shouldn't do that. I'm too far away from that cookie for you to show it to me. Something is wrong. Everybody just said Dannah, you should just go listen to the show that you just did. If you've never had an Erin Davis chocolate chip cookie, yeah, your world is not complete. 

Portia: I have not.

Dannah: Portia, ship one to you right away. 

Erin: We could. 

Dannah: Friends listen if this episode really was a wakeup call to you in the way that you're approaching things. We want to remind you that we're taking this whole month to redeem the topic of self-care. God does want us to take care of our bodies; they are the temple of the living loving God of the universe. But the world really does have us on a campaign to believe little “t” truths about how we care for ourselves. 

This month we're gonna gird you up with some hope and perspective about what God says about taking care of His temple, our bodies, so hope you'll join us every Monday. Let's wake up with hope together next week on Grounded. 

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