Making good habits

I have made it to the New Testament.

I have been reading through the bible from cover to cover.  I started toward the end of 2011 at Genesis and have plodded my way through the Old Testament.  As I started the New Testament, my husband started a new schedule at work.  Because of this change, I have had to adjust my "quiet time" with the Lord and there was a chunk of time in which I had not yet figured out my new schedule.

As I read through Matthew 12, I was struck by a number of passages but this one took the cake for me.  "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.'  When it arrives, it find the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.  Then it goes and takes with it several other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there.  And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."  Matthew 12:43-45

Or to paraphrase, if we don't replace bad habits with good ones, if we just try to remove the bad habit but do not put a good habit in its' place, then we are setting ourselves up to fail.  For example, if I want to stop relying on food for comfort, but I do not fill that void with God, then I will end up falling back on food for comfort. 

This is something I have struggled with for a number of years.  According to health professionals, I am in my healthy weight range.  But when I look in the mirror, I am not in "my" healthy weight range. 

I use food for comfort.  It had not occurred to me that I would continue to fail in my healthy eating pursuits if I did not replace that desire for comfort with something else.  I was trying to rid myself of a bad habit without replacing it with a good habit.

Lord, help me replace the comfort I crave with your never ending love.

In His Grace...