It all started with a certain cheesecake recipe.  That one little foray off the dieting high road was the hairline crack, the chink in the armor that the ever-watchful enemy needed to worm his way in.  And I was doing so well.  

In the days following that blitz of sugar-infused hysteria, my iron will seemed to be changing bit by bit into something more along the lines of…oh, I don’t know, shaving cream will.  While it might give the appearance of some sort of barrier, it’s really not fooling anybody.  Yep, the ole taste-buds got a quick reintroduction to an old friend and suddenly, their lust was insatiable!  I found myself driven to frozen foods for ice cream and pulled by some unseen force to the baking aisle for chocolate chips.  In the name of fake vigilance, I filled my cart with 100-Calorie packs of Lorna Doones and Low-Cal Dulce de Leche Jello-Brand pudding cups.  For a little while, denial allowed me to put my self-loathing on a shelf and let me believe that I had it all under control.  “Moderation in all things…that’s the ticket” became my daily mantra.
But, eating four packs of 100-Calorie Lorna Doones sort of blows the mantra (not to mention the victory in consuming just 100 calories)!  Can I get a witness?  My pants started to feel a little snug again and I started “forgetting” to step on the scale in the mornings (maybe what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me).  Finally, though, I had to face the fact that I had lost all the ground I had gained.  Or, in this case, should I say that I had gained all the ground I had lost? Hmmm.
I’ve been doing the No Other Gods online study with 3000 other women, as facilitated through the Living Proof Blog.  It’s a great study; very enlightening with regard to bringing to light things/ideas/people that we hold as idols in our lives.  This week has been about deception and how satan uses vulnerability in our lives to sneak in and do his worst.  My little bout with falling off the sugar wagon made me think about that sneaky slime ball and shake my head.
This is how he works:  
  • He determines your weaknesses
  • He tempts you with something irresistible (it was cheesecake, people!)
  • He tricks you into believing that you deserve it and that it won’t hurt you
  • You take the bait and invite him right on in.
  • You enjoy it for a while until the consequences start to show up (or your waistline starts to fill out).
  • The blinders fall off and you find yourself smack in the middle of a sad reality.
You gotta know your weaknesses.  You gotta walk your fence-line every day to make sure there are no weak places that might allow a breach in security.  He might look like a cute little kitten at the gate to whom you might throw a piece of your cheesecake, but he’s not nearly as cuddly as a roaring lion devouring YOU instead!
Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  
1 Peter 5:8