If you are anything like me you probably don’t always particularly care for the image that stares back at you first thing in the morning. I have once again decided that I need to go on a diet. My body is about 20 pounds over my desired weight. A good 10 over my really healthy weight.

I have made a discovery, when I mess up on a diet I give myself permission to just splurge. I am doing the “name not to be mentioned” low carb diet. Sticking with this diet means precious few carbs in my daily diet if I want my body to loose weight. I have made a discovery about myself. When I mess up, I give up and allow my desire to eat way to many carbs to take control. I figure “okay because I’m off my diet for the day, why not enjoy it?” Sounds reasonable enough.

It just hit me a few moments ago the problem with this idea. Its not what I set out to do. You see every time I splurge I get farther away from the goal I set out to accomplish. This is what the New Testament writers called harmartia. It means in English missing the mark. See, I want to loose weight, but I gave in to eat something that I shouldn’t because its loaded with tasty carbs (mmm… tasty tasty chopped dates). Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying the carbs I’m eating are either good or bad in and of themelves. What is wrong is my saying earlier in the day “I am not going to eat carbs” and then eating them. My missing the mark occured when I ate a handful of delicious chopped dates without thinking that they are loaded with carbs.

Realizing that I had just ate carbs I gave up the rest of the day and splurged on carbs. Now here’s the problem I turned a simple missing the mark into a major one by eating more carbs than I normally ever would have. The problem is my body will now have more to do to get rid of those extra carbs. I turned a little missing the mark in to a big one. Tomorrow I will have to be more careful to not partake of tasty carbs when I am avoiding them to diet. If I slip up I need to be especially careful not to do more harm to my diet by allowing myself to consume whatever yummy carb I desire.

Desire can cause you to do make or miss the mark. Wisdom is knowing when and how to separate good desires from bad ones. When it comes to dieting and eating this is one I am working on. Pray for me to be wise in my eating habits especially as I start the diet afresh.

Oh yea, the English word we use for harmatia, “missing the mark” is simply refered to as sin. That of course is a blog entry for another day.