Stuffed

I just stumbled upon an interview with some health food guru yesterday.  I have no idea who she was, but she was discussing a new method to “healthify” your life!  I think it was some crazy vegan diet, but regardless, I found myself intrigued by what she said.  This probably isn’t revolutionary, but for the purpose of my post let’s just roll with it.

The challenge/diet or whatever you want to call it, basically requires you to introduce some new things into your lifestyle, before you are required to take anything away. So for example, on day one, you would just add drinking water to your diet, a lot of it. On day two, you would then need to eat an apple and also drink your water.  On day three, you would add two tablespoons of flax seed to who knows what, and eat your apple and drink your water.

That’s as far as I listened.  I can only take so much health food talk.  From what I gathered, the point of this was that you are starting to fill your stomach on those things that take up a lot of room and that will keep you feeling full.  So by the end of this challenge you’ve added so many new things into your diet that you just don’t have room for a lot of the old ‘junk’.  You won’t feel like eating other things because your belly is satisfied. And apparently apples and flax seed and water do some special magic in that belly and make you feel full longer. Blah blah blah. Enough about healthy eating.   But to be fair, in theory, this makes a lot of sense.

Now hold that thought.

I’ve been feeling very spiritually dry lately.  Sin has been gripping me more…fear, worry, discontentment, covetousness and I’ve found myself seeking joy and peace in things that I find fun or that I like or want. Like Pinterest or cooking, or having a cleaner house or decorating my home or getting thinner.  Depends on the day.

With all of the social media that surrounds us, it’s extremely difficult not to get consumed with the myriad of ‘hobbies’ or ‘causes’ that are presented to us on a daily basis..  I see people running crafty businesses or making amazing food or fixing up their homes and I want to do all of that. I think I should, or I need to. That would serve my family wouldn’t it?  And I would enjoy it.  I’ve been hungering for these things and seeking to fill myself with them and I haven’t been satisfied.

Different things might tempt each of us, and I was reminded by John Piper in his book, A Hunger For God that “the weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with ‘other things’”.  A lot of times, these are not even bad things, but because we are stuffing ourselves on them, we have no room for that which is best for us, yet we are left still wanting more.

And just like that diet above, we need to start by adding those things that will awaken our appetite and hunger for God.  We need to make sure we’re doing those things that are best for our souls.   If we’re filling up on those things, we’ll stop seeking our joy in counterfeits but we will find it, in the only true joy, Jesus Christ.

The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable…… These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God. (John Piper, A Hunger For God, 14-15)

So what are you filling up on?   I pray that God would give us an appetite for Him.  I want us to find our rest, our hope, our joy and our peace in Him alone, for our good and His glory.

Here’s a song that I love from the latest Sovereign Grace Music worship album that is on the same theme and hopefully will help you yearn for more of Jesus.

We Hunger and Thirst – Sovereign Grace Music from Sovereign Grace Music on Vimeo.