Originally published Tuesday, 23 July 2013.
Over the past month and a half I have been making a B.I.G. effort to eat healthy and mostly just have some portion control. I really haven't felt deprived. At least I didn't think so until I made a batch of cookies for a celebration.
First it started with the cookie dough. Yes, it was the store bought kind. But for me, if it is made from a box or a tube of dough...then it IS homemade. Can I get an Amen? Little bites here and there as I laid out the dough in semi-neat balls across the cookie sheet added up to well, more than one little "I will take just a taste and nothing more..."
When the batch cooled off you would think this chick had never seen a fresh, hot sugar cookie. Good grief. As I used my spatula to place the cookie on a platter, here and there cookies that were "broken" ended up in my mouth.
This sugar deprived girl just wanted a darn cookie...or two...or three...or...ten. Whoa.
If you've ever over indulged on cookies you know the feeling of guilt and shame and blah blah blah. I was there for a split second. But to be honest, I really enjoyed filling up my depraved need for sugar. Though, if I'm being even more honest, that depravity will certainly circle back again as I hop back on the wagon of healthy eating. Sooner or later I will rebel out of sheer desire for oh so yummy cookies.
I'm wondering if you have ever cut back on your faith, if you have ever cut God out of your life and turned to other things to meet your needs or give you pleasure. Sometimes we think it is easy just to have our religion on Sunday mornings and then segment God out of the parts where we think He will dampen all the fun. Thus starts the cycle of filling up again and again on these things –– like cookies!–– in hopes they will fulfill the depravity that we ourselves created by cutting out the One true source of fulfillment.
I love it when Scripture uses descriptive words like full, abundant, fulness, overflowing. I think it speaks to my own dramatic nature for over indulgence! This year my life theme has me in the place of filling up on God. The Lord put it on my heart to seek and soak in His presence and fill up on Him first...keeping my head down and focused on the Throne rather than "things" that I only think will meet my needs.
I want to hear from God this year, do you? We can only do this if we are sensitive to His presence and continually check in with Him as we make our way through the busy day.
It is when we take quiet moments to stop, take a breath, put down the cookie and ask Him to fill our depravity that He moves in and has His way in our hearts. The cookie for you might be a need for joy but instead you look to buy happiness at your favorite store. The cookie for you might be the need acceptance so you partake in gossip at the office to feel like part of the cool club. For you the cookie might be the need for assurance and love and care so you cross the boundaries with your boyfriend and have sex.
Our God is so much more exciting, more fulfilling, more life-giving, more thrilling than that plate of cookies we are tempted to indulge in on a daily basis.
~How will you, today, seek after Him instead of that plate of cookies?
With all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings. {Ephesians 3:18-19 THE VOICE}
The thief approaches with malicious intent, looking to steal, slaughter, and destroy; I came to give life with joy and abundance. {John 10:10 THE VOICE}
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