Give a child a choice between a healthy snack or junk food and most will choose the latter. Why?
5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Matthew 5:6
Satisfaction! It is so easy to develop an appetite for chips and ice cream and snack cakes. The stuff tastes good. Junk food satisfies a desire.
Us adults have created words like "comfort food" and "Happy Meals". The dinner table has given way to the drive-thru. Microwaves have become necessary and in many homes are used more often than a stove. In our busy lifestyles eating and drinking is a distraction as we drive, talk on a phone, watch tv or surf the net.
Obesity is growing in the U.S. and the health problems associated are growing, too. All the consequence of eating and drinking to satisfy desire not fuel our bodies.
Oh, there are still some who eat and drink right, healthy. How boring that must be. And yeah, they seem healthier but is it really worth it? I mean, you only live life once why not enjoy it. Why deprive yourself of comfort food and happy meals?
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it always focuses on now and ignores tomorrow. The consequences of todays actions affects tomorrows satisfaction.
I've been overweight. Being overweight makes you invisible and a target. The opposite sex ignores you and people for some reason I do not understand think it okay to make comments or jokes. I played the game of laughing it off. It was not funny. It hurt.
Last summer I entered a weight loss contest. I set my goals for the twelve weeks. I wanted to lose at least one percent of my body weight each week. That would be 2.43 pounds. I succeeded. I wanted to get under 200 pounds. I succeeded. I won first place and my children got the prize money and a "buy whatever you want" shopping trip.
But more importantly I learned the connection between food and drink and how it affects your health, your weight, and your sense of well-being. But even with all this knowledge I have slipped back in to old eating habits. It is so easy to grab something to eat instead of preparing a meal, to eat to satisfy cravings instead of need. Tuesday I begin another contest. I am so looking forward to the discipline of eating right. I have a target of being in the 170's by the end of May. And the ultimate goal is incorporating the "contest mentality" into daily life. Because until it is a lifestyle I will never daily enjoy the benefits.
5:6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
We hunger and thirst for what we desire. What we desire gets our time, our attention, our heart. Righteousness is not usually high on the list of what we desire. I mean, we want to be righteous, but righteousness does not really satisfy our desires for ourselves.
And so we live our lives with that nagging feeling of something is not quite right, that there should be more to being a christian than what I experience. We do not daily experience the fullness of GOD. We are not completely satisfied.
Oh, there are seasons, times when we experience the fullness of GOD. Our spiritual selves are completely satisfied. But, alas, we fall back into old habits, the sin which does so easily besets us reclaims its territory and we live trying to satisfy it and never succeeding.
Indeed, blessed are they whose greatest desire, who craves, who hungers and thirsts, has an appetite for righteousness, for being right with GOD. For this person never gets up from the table of the Lord hungry. They are not stuffed but they are filled. And they have found the "great secret".
34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.
Perhaps we need to forgo our cappucinos, energy drinks, and whatever we "need" and drink from the well of living water. It was said of the water that Jesus turned to wine that it was the best of the feast. And He still takes the ordinary and makes it special to those who trust in Him.
Blessed are those that trust in Him, they shall not hunger or thirst, they shall be filled and satisfied.
.....peace..... |
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