The Answer Lies with God, Not Within Self

I am currently reading David Tyler and Kurt Grady's "Deceptive Diagnosis: When Sin is Called Sickness", an excellent look at the modern trend of behavioral psychology's relabeling of 'addictions' and anti-social behaviors as diseases. While never specifically mentioning anorexia or bulimia, every point the authors make about the dangers inherent in seeking medications and rationalizations over repentance could easily apply to eating disorders - including compulsive overeating.

Every page has my notes and highlighting all over it - the only thing I don't like about this text is that I did not write it myself. Here is an excellent excerpt I came across today which drives home the need to seek God and not man's wisdom:

Is it possible for Christians then to benefit (or at least not be harmed) from secular psychotherapies? Based on the underlying premise in all secular therapies, I would argue no. Anything, including talk that leads people into themselves (helping the sinful self please itself) rather than into the loving arms of the Lord Almighty ultimately leads to further sin and rebellion. Sadly, people turn from the wisdom of the Creator of the Universe to the wisdom of a fallen, created being whose "help" is based on a humanistic system. That system neither understands nor does it provide the the healing that Christians are seeking. Can man's secular counsel temporarily relieve pain? Yes. Can it satisfy a deep spiritual thirst? No.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14).

I have known quite a few other women over the years who have been fully healed from the bondage of eating disorders, some of them readers of this blog. (Why aren't you ladies leaving comments, btw?) Not a single one of them was ever helped by a psychologist or secular therapist. Not a single one. In fact, in my experience tele-counseling women, the only thing ladies seem to learn at group therapy is how to blame their husbands for their problem. Psychologists tell them bulimia is a "disease" and prescribe Zoloft (in my college days, it was Prozac). Convincing a woman that her eating disorder is a "disease" or "condition" which is not her fault is self-defeating: it ensures that she will never walk in repentance. The "condition" is sin, and it goes back to the Fall. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can confess the ED as sin and see repentance for the gift it really is.

God stands ever ready and faithful to heal, but the condition for this blessing is to agree with Him about our sin and not seek to white-wash it. Learning to really hate the anorexic or bulimic behavior because it is wrong, and desiring to walk away from it no matter what it takes is necessary in order to really repent. No psychologist will ever tell a client this, as making moral judgements is "taboo" in the psych fields. Making excuses and blame-shifting may be much more popular and gratefully received, but in the end it only leads to death. IN the case of eating disorders, it is all too often a physical as well as spiritual death.

Decide today to seek God's wisdom!