How You Can Help Defeat the Spirit of Heaviness
You must lift weight off your spirit before you can release it off your body.
When I weighed 240 pounds, I felt as if I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. It was as if the mental weight I felt inside translated into physical weight on the outside. The spirit of heaviness was upon me!
If you are dealing with the spirit of heaviness, I have three tips to help lift it. It helps to understand the underlying cause first so you can then understand why the methods to lift it work.
A psychiatrist once said people who deal with neurotic disorders, such as depression or anxiety, almost always have a habit of fault-finding. Either they focus on faults within themselves or faults with other people.
No matter what is good in their lives, they always focus on what is wrong and what is lacking.
When I used to suffer from depression years ago, I was like that. But then I discovered God’s promise in Isaiah 61:3:
“To preserve those who mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”
Did you catch that part about the garment of praise being given for the spirit of heaviness? The following are three ways to put on the garment of praise every day:
1. Listen praise music and sing every day. Set aside time in your day to listen to your favorite upbeat praise songs. Sing praises to the Lord as you perform routine tasks, like washing the dishes or sweeping the floor. Since you have to do these things anyway, you might as well cultivate a merry heart while doing them!
2. Create a gratitude list. When I suffered from depression, I used this Scripture as a prescription:
Psalm 119:164—”Seven times a day I praise You, Because of Your righteous judgments.”
God led me to write down seven things for which I wanted to praise Him each day for 31 days. Once I did that, it became a habit to start looking for things to be grateful for in my life. Even in the midst of the most trying times, you can always find reasons to praise!
3. Write a “thank-you” note to all the people on your gratitude list. For all of the people you put on your gratitude list, get some “thank-you” notes and write a brief note to each of them about how much you appreciate their presence in your life.
As you know, tomorrow is not promised to you. Wouldn’t it be best to let the people you care about know how much they mean to you while they are still with you? Again, you don’t have to write War and Peace. But just write a line or two about something you appreciate or like about them, and then thank them.
It doesn’t matter if they thank you in return. All you want to do is make sure they know you appreciate them. If you end up with 10 people on your list and commit to writing one note per day, you’d have this done in 10 days. But I’d suggest you do this sooner rather than later.
Cultivating a practice of praise and of “good-finding” rather than fault-finding each day will help to lift the spirit of heaviness right off of you. And I believe it will support your physical weight loss as well! {eoa}
Once 240 pounds and a size 22, Kimberly Taylor can testify of God’s healing power to end binge eating. She is an author and the creator of the Christian weight-loss website takebackyourtemple.com. Visit today for inspirational health and weight-loss tips.
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