Eat with Awareness

The book asked "have you ever eaten a candy bar, and wondered where it went?" Haha YES. I do this all the time. Then I often accuse people of hiding or eating my food. I'll be like "hey! where did my french fry go? Did you eat my french fry?!?" in an accusatory voice. Once I realize it's not on my plate and I didn't drop it, I resign myself to the fact that I already ate it :/

"When you eat with no awareness you miss out on the flavor, texture, and sensation of your food. Because you didn't 'get' the taste you wanted, you may still yearn for it so you eat more."

I like and am convicted about how the book says we need to enjoy and really "feel" food. You're not supposed to wolf it down, you're supposed to enjoy the "flavor, texture ,and sensation." I am so guilty of wolfing my food down, especially when I'm hungry. I will go to TOWN on a subway sandwich and eat a footlong in like 5 minutes. And then I feel stuffed and lethargic afterwards haha. So. I need to focus on eating, and not wolfing, and I also need to try to not do other things like read and watch tv while I'm eating. That will be really hard for me as I get bored with silence...silence in the air and in my mind. But I guess first I will practice slowing down...then I'll work on the whole eating while distracted thing.

Guess what? I'm on my 21st day! Yay for me :) This doesn't even feel like work anymore. It's seriously like apart of my day. I love new habits.

"It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: 'I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?' But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? 'Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this' ' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Romans 9:16-21

This passage is very...confusing for me. I had that same question about "well if you made them and then hardened them, what's the point? is it their fault?" It's wonderful that God has mercy on people, but what does it mean that he hardens whom he wants to harden? I wonder if he hardens people who he knows do not ultimately choose him in the end, so he gives them over to themselves? Like Hitler. Did God know that he would refuse to change his ways no matter what, so he "hardened" him and let him run free? I feel like there are very few people that God hardens. And maybe I'm wrong, but I know that he is a God of mercy, and that mercy triumphs over justice. So in his all knowing, sovereign ways, there must be a reason for this "hardening."

I do like how it specifies with the clay "noble purposes and common use." So maybe its not saying that he gives people over to themselves. Maybe it's saying that some people have higher callings and purposes than others. And that we shouldn't complain about where we are called or who we are made to be because there's a reason he made us that way and called us to that position. Hm. Very interesting chapter...