Food For This Week

"Just because I get hunger pangs does not guarantee I will get to fill my belly. But what it does tell me is that I was created to eat. These inconsolable yearnings tell us that we are creatures who have been crafted to find fulfillment somewhere else. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanations is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfies it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, so as to suggest the real thing." CS Lewis ~ The Problem of Pain

"...this deep hurt is a signpost, showing us the way out or better the way in. It is a long, narrow, and painful wound inflicted by Love...Like Cupid's arrows, God sends shafts to pierce and to wound us. God in no sadist. He is speaking and wooing and reminding, and He will hurt us if He needs to. After all, the strongest and most powerful arrow He ever shot from His quiver was Jesus, and He did not shelter Him from pain. He has a million shafts to choose from, though some are subtle, even mute, those arrows that strike at the oddest moments...Sometimes He takes away in order to point the way and sometimes He stabs by giving. Either way He wants us to pine for what is not here, but there, in Him" Timothy Stoner ~ The God Who Smokes

Those two quotes served as the meditation during the Prelude to Worship yesterday. Both quotes are very timely for me. I have been thinking about my cravings and what happens when I divert from my God-given desire for Him to the tangible things around me. The result is "too much". Too much food, too much shopping, too much TV, too much internet, too much worry, too much idle time...the list goes on. The consequence of all the excess can be devastating to body, mind and spirit (and finances). And worst of all, it crowds my time so that my relationship with God is devastated. There is a constant battle to stave off the call of "the world, the flesh, and the devil" and allow my heart to be consumed by Him...more of Christ, less of me.

I will listen again to the sermon when it shows up here. My pastor taught from John 11. This is where Mary and Martha lose their brother Lazarus to death and Jesus restores him to life. We learned about God's purpose to our sufferings and afflictions and that Jesus is our reward. Now. Today. I am anxious to listen again and flesh out my notes.

I have a lot to chew on this week.