Filled Up

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for

righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Matthew 5:6

Powdered sugar covered pizzelles, white fudge covered oreos, frosted sugar cookies in all the shapes of Christmas, and the family favorites with affectionate nicknames such as “the white cookies” and “Aunt Joanne’s cookies” only begin to tell the story of why, this time of year, I am rarely hungry when it comes to sitting down at meal time. My capacity, the room I have for food, whether junk food or that which has real nutritional value, is limited. And so enjoying one unfortunately comes at the expense of the other.

We don’t often look at it this way, but our ability to take in spiritual, mental, and emotional input into our lives is also limited. We have a capacity for the things that we can process in a given day, how much we can take in. If it was a recipe, it would include defined amounts of time used, of energy expended, of thoughts processed, and of emotions juggled. We have only so much time to divvy out, so much energy to use up before we collapse, so much mental strain to endure and so many emotions to control in a given 24 hour day. Take into consideration the absolutes, parenting and family responsibilities and the demands of our employment, and the pie gets even smaller for what’s available before there’s no room left for one more thing.

Two scriptures speak to this issue, having room for God. Psalm 10:4 speaks of the ungodly and says, “…in all his thoughts, there is no room for God.” And Jesus said this to his fellow Jews, “…..because you have no room for my word.” While their issue was motivational, we can find ourselves in the same place. And so we are faced with asking a couple questions. First, what are we filling our lives up with? Is it with junk food, with those things that have no intrinsic value but provide a temporary escape from facing life real issues? Are we putting first things first, as in eating the chicken, rice, green beans and salad of life before downing as many Christmas cookies as we have room left for? Are we finding there’s no room left for God because we’ve put watching our favorite television show, movie, sporting event or home project ahead of him. 

When our personal discipline aligns with our spiritual desires, we come to a place where we use the time and energy we’ve been given in ways that help us grow as individuals and that prepare us for all that life will bring our way. Maybe with every Christmas cookie we eat, there’ll come a reminder that spiritual junk food, time wasters and failed priorities, will cause us to lose our appetite for the true spiritual riches that are reserved for us.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church