Honoring My Temple

Do You Really Believe You Can Change?

• Kelly Wenner • Season 1 • Episode 17

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0:00 | 10:52

Do you believe change is really possible, that you can break old habits, build new ones, get healthy, and become who you want to be?

If you're honest, you probably believe it… for other people. You scroll past person after person who seems to have it all figured out, and instead of feeling inspired, you feel a little smaller. That's great for them, the quiet voice says. But that's just not me.

If you've ever felt that — like discipline, follow-through, and lasting change are possible for everyone but you — this episode is for you.

We're talking about the gap between believing something is true and believing it's true for you, why that gap keeps so many of us stuck, and one of the most raw and honest prayers we could ever bring to God. It's a short one. It might be exactly what you need.

🎧 Honoring My Temple — biblical wisdom for your health, habits, mindset, and everyday life.

Connect & Go Deeper

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Honoring My Temple podcast. If you're looking to put God at the center of your life and live that out practically through your health, habits, and everyday choices, this podcast is for you. I'm Kelly Wenner, founder of Soul Strength Fit and author of Honoring My Temple. Here we explore biblical wisdom and how to apply it to real life, your mindset, food, exercise, and the habits that shape who you're becoming. Let's get started. Do you believe, really believe, that you can break old habits and form new ones? That you can set a goal and actually become the person you want to be? Do you believe you can reach your health and fitness goals and then keep them? Here's why I'm asking. Scripture tells us in 2 Timothy 1.7 that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And when it comes to making change, breaking the old patterns, building new ones, learning to eat and move and live in a way that honors your body, that's exactly what you need. Power, love, self-discipline. If scripture can be applied to every part of our lives, and I believe it can, then how does this verse apply to your health habits, to your eating? You've been given a spirit of power. So let me ask you honestly, do you have power over food or does food have power over you? Are you able to make choices you don't later regret? Can you set a plan and actually stick with it? Do you have the power to act in a way that isn't governed by your mood or how you feel in a given moment? Or does impulse sometimes run the show? You have been given a spirit of love. Do you love God in such a way that you give him your moment by moment living, making the most of each opportunity, pursuing the best version of who he made you to be? Do you love the people around you enough to bring them your best, your best energy, your best health, your best days? And here's the one we skip. How are you doing it loving yourself? Scripture says to love others as you love yourself. So that's the standard. So are you setting that bar high enough? Or have you quietly lowered it for yourself? Do you love yourself enough to keep the promises you make to yourself? Enough to take the time it requires to care for yourself. Enough to put in the effort to become the person you deep down know you can be. You have been given a spirit of self-discipline. A spirit of self-discipline isn't something you switch on in one area of your life and then leave off in the others. It's not a tool you reach for sometimes. It's a character trait. Part of who you're becoming across your whole life. Are you disciplined enough to say no to the foods you know aren't good for you and yes to the ones that are? Disciplined enough to stop eating when your body has had enough? To eat for the reasons God intended food, nourishment, sustenance, health, rather than comfort or escape? Disciplined enough to follow through on your commitment to exercise, even when you don't feel like it. You have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And that gift is enough to reach your goals. So let me ask you the real question. Do you believe you have that spirit? Sit with that for a second. There's no wrong answer. But I'm going to guess that you and I might land around the same place. You might land where I so often do. Because here's my honest confession. I do believe this is true. Scripture says it. And I believe scripture is true. And yet, and yet I struggle. I don't always live with a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. Sometimes I feel worn down and powerless. Sometimes I just can't seem to love myself the way I know I should. Sometimes I wrestle with discipline and end up yet again making a choice I later regret. Here's what I've come to realize: it's one thing to believe scripture is true. It's another thing entirely to believe it's true for me. And that gap, believing it in general, but doubting it for yourself, is where so many of us quietly live, a foot on both sides of the fence. I do believe, and yet I struggle. If that's you, I want to give you a simple prayer. Six words. I do believe, help my unbelief. It's a prayer straight out of the Gospels, and it comes from one of the most human moments in all scripture. A desperate father brings his son to Jesus' disciples. The boy has suffered for years, seizures, episodes so violent they've thrown him into fire and water. The disciples try to help and they can't. When Jesus arrives, the father's carrying the helplessness of watching his own child suffer, powerless to fix it. He pleads, if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. And Jesus answers in a way that puts the focus on the father's faith. Everything is possible for one who believes. And the Father, this is the part I love, doesn't pretend. He doesn't perform. He cries out, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. That's it. That's the whole prayer. An honest, imperfect faith that admits its own doubt and brings the problem to Jesus anyway. And Jesus heals his son. You and I have a thousand chances to pray that same prayer. I do believe you know me, love me, and have a plan for me. Help my unbelief. I do believe I can experience your peace and an abundant life. Help my unbelief. I do believe I've been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. Help me overcome my unbelief. It's deeply comforting to know that a small, honest faith that names its own doubt is still enough to bring to Jesus. And when his disciples later asked why they couldn't do it, Jesus tells them something just as freeing. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to a mountain, move, and it will move. The mustard seed was one of the smallest seeds they knew. His point wasn't the size of the faith, it was the object of it. You don't need giant, flawless faith to experience God's power. You need a tiny bit of genuine, humble trust placed in the right place in God Himself. In that culture, a mountain was the picture of an impossible obstacle. So what's your mountain? A strain in your marriage, the weight of raising kids, an old hurt you've never fully healed from, a character struggle, maybe a battle with food you've fought for years and quietly stopped believing you could win. Whatever it is, Jesus says faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to move it. But in this matters, we can't stop at the prayer. James reminds us that faith by itself, if it isn't accompanied by action, is dead. We need faith, even as small as a mustard seed. But we need faith with feet. So here's what that looks like. You stand in front of your mountain and you come to God honestly. I believe you've given me what I need to face this. I believe you've given me a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline, and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Help me overcome my unbelief. And then you ask for wisdom and you take the next right step. If you're praying this over your health, get specific. Name the place you've struggled to believe you have what it takes. Shine a light on the stronghold you've secretly doubted you could break. The goal you really don't think you'll reach. You believe you've been made new in Christ, but maybe you're not sure you can actually live new. Where is that for you? Then ask him, just for today, what's the next right step? Just for this moment, what's the next right step and take it? And tomorrow, take the next one. Because every choice we make carries a weight. It carries either the weight of defeat, regret, and stagnation, or the weight of glory. Lord God, even when it's hard, even when I'm tired, even when I'm unmotivated, even when my faith feels as small as a mustard seed, help me choose the weight of glory. Thanks for spending this time with me. To learn more, visit SoulStrengthFit.com.