A Honey Bun and a Diet Coke

I’m sitting at my desk typing away on my latest assignment when I sit up, yawn, and look at the clock on my computer screen. It reads 3:00 PM.  3:00 PM! Oh my I have been sitting here for too long.  As I come to this realization I feel a light throb in my shoulders and upper back, my legs are tingling, and my wrist are sore.  I shake my wrist out and decide that I am hungry too.  I decide that I will eat a snack.  I look in my lunchbox and see the apple and protein bar I responsibly brought with me to work this morning.  Blah.  I really don’t want to eat you healthy food.  But what do I want though?  I guess I will get up and walk down to the canteen.  Halt! I know and you all know that THIS is a bad idea!  I quickly recall all the latest information I have read regarding the evils of vending machines and I know that there is nothing in that machine that is going to be remotely healthy for me to eat at this 3:00 pm lag time, but my boredom and slight hunger take on a mind of their own. So, I grab my wallet and down the stairs I go.  Please note that I did decide to take the stairs.  I just want credit given where it is due!

I arrive at the vending machines and the rational side of me reminds me that I can at least attempt to buy something that is half way worth putting in my body.  I scan the shelves of the delightful treats and there it sits.  The honey bun! It looks delicious and I want it.  I want it bad.

The bargaining process begins in my brain:

  It’s just one honey bun Jodie. Come on you DESERVE a treat.  You have had a stressful day and worked very hard.  You can’t deprive yourself of everything good.  The good die young they say!

No.  The obese die young.  You know this is a bad decision.  You should march right back up to your desk and eat your protein bar.  It will fill you up until dinner and it’s not just empty calories. 

Calories! Let’s think about what you have had to eat today… a protein shake, a yogurt, and a lean cuisine. I mean you should be named a saint of Healthy Eating.  That is quite an impressive list of food not to mention how many EXTRA calories you have left for today. Besides when you get home you can walk a couple miles…okay a mile.

True…I could do that.  And I have been “good” all day.  One honey bun is not the end of the world.  I mean it has been forever since you ate a honey bun.  Okay, but only this one time! Just for a special treat! I do deserve it after all…

Clink! Clink! Clink! I drop my change and my sugary bun o’ goodness falls.  I then go to the drink machine and purchase my diet coke.  I pick up the can and scan the label.  See…no calories.  If you had gotten a regular drink you would have taken in hundreds of extra calories.  You are so hard on yourself.  You make responsible decisions all the time.  You don’t ever give yourself credit for the good decisions…you just always want to beat yourself up! 

Well the fact of the matter is a bad decision is bad decision no matter how many you make, how you rationalize it, or how you try to justify it to yourself.  Like choosing the honey bun there are times when we make bad choices in our spiritual walk.  We know the right thing to do, but we choose the wrong things anyway.  Not only do we choose the wrong things often times we convince ourselves it was “okay” to make that choice.  We continuously do this…living in this “in between” state.  It is probably one of the worst places we can be in our relationship with God. You find yourself in this place where you claim to be his child and all the wonderful things that come alone with it, but your actions don’t reflect that declaration.  It is confusing.  It’s not confusing to God.  It is confusing to us!  God always does his part in the relationship.  When WE make bad choices and things go horribly wrong…It has everything to do with US and our decisions. But, WE often find ourselves asking “Why God?  Why ME?” 

One day you are “thankful for your blessings” and the next day you are drunk beyond rationalization (but you deserve a night out…you’re a busy mom and wife…you just need to “cut loose” one time...it's harmless).  One day you are asking for prayers and the next you are lying to your friend to avoid an engagement you don’t want to attend (you don’t want to hurt her feelings…it’s the right thing to do).  One day you are offering to pray for the family who will be split up from a divorce (and the next day you are gossiping about who all the wife has slept around with.  She shouldn't have done it if she didn't want people to talk about it).  And the list goes on and on.  You look inside your heart, and you know the right thing to do. You know you should eat that protein bar, but that honey bun taste SOOO good.  Its okay though…you don’t eat one every day and you are having that diet coke with it.

So what does God have to say about this?  What does he have to say about our constant “on the fence” state?  That dangerous spiritual place; where we feel closer to God than letting go of him all the way. That false comfort we feel with the justifications of our shortcomings…

Revelation 3: (ESV)

 ¹⁵ “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 

1 John 2:15-16 (ESV)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 

James 3:10-12 (ESV)

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. 

 

I try to remember each day that I am going to do something(s) really stupid. But I try my hardest each day to transform myself into his image.  I remember the goal that is set for myself each day.  Which is to be someone that people see God in, so if they should have a question in their hearts that may draw them closer..they know they can ask me.  I redirect my desires from that of the world to God and his promises.  I know that as he fills me up I will no longer hunger for the worldly things I desire.