March 22nd, 2012 
dsisler Duncan Donuts. The two words together can bring sheer joy to my life. Living in Colorado has meant giving up certain food items that I have loved my entire life. Duncan Donuts is one of them. They simply didn’t exist in this part of the country…until now.
My husband told me recently that Duncan Donuts was planning to expand and there would be one opening in a nearby town. One that I visit frequently. My dream of getting those donuts had become a reality.
My first thought was, “YEAH!” My second thought was remembering the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was working at a local department store in Upstate New York. I passed by a Duncan Donut shop on my way to work and on my way home from work.
Early in the summer, I stopped on my way home and picked up a dozen. They were gone before I went to work the next time; so once again, I stopped by on my way home and picked up another dozen. That was all it took. I was stopping nearly every day to get a dozen donuts.
By the end of the summer, I was nearly 30 pounds heavier. It was donut weight. I looked like a donut. Not only did I look heavier, but I felt horrible! I was sluggish. There was no motivation to move at all. I had made a huge mistake through these three months.
Back at college, I worked hard to get the weight off. I quit eating donuts and ate the food that was available. It wasn’t long before I was back to my “ideal” weight and feeling much better. PHEW!
I have been leading a Bible study called, “Made to Crave.” If you’ve never seen or heard about it before, I would encourage you to read the book. It is life-changing. More so than any study I’ve done in the past.
The concept is that God created us to crave. He wants us to crave. But He wants us to crave Him. Not food (or anything else you want to put in here…like money, success, love, etc.). In this study, Lysa TerKeurst leads the reader to multiple passages of Scripture that talk about food. It is quite eye opening.
The one that has had a huge impact on me is from Philippians 3:15-21. This is right after the section when Paul talks about pressing on…forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. That in itself is a great weight loss motivator, but then Paul says something in verses 18-20.
“For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is their shame. Their mind is on earthy things. But our citizenship is in heaven.”
“When the apostle Paul says, ‘their god is their stomach,’ he means that food can become so consuming that people find themselves ruled by it…if we find that certain foods are impossible to walk away from—we can’t or won’t deny ourselves an unhealthy choice in order to make a healthier choice—then it’s a clue we are being ruled by this food on some level. Being ruled by something other than God diminishes our commitment and will make us feel increasingly distant from him.”[i]
Unfortunately, I’ve allowed my stomach to be my god for years. I have gone through my life without believing it was an issue, but in reality, it is one thing that has separated me from God.
I now know that only through the power of Christ and a daily dependence on God, am I able to stop craving all the foods that have kept my mind off of the things above. I am not where I want to be, but am “pressing on” to reach that goal.
Now that I am working on craving God more than food (or anything else), I don’t think I will even step foot in the new Duncan Donut shop. A change of mind and attitude has made all the difference in the world…physically and spiritually.
Grace and peace be yours in abundance,
Donna
[i] Lysa TerKeurst, Made to Crave (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010),65-66
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