I know. The Snickers commercial says, "Hungry? Why wait?" not "What are you waiting for?" But that's just it. If you're just hungry for a chocolate bar, then really, "Why wait?" A chocolate bar. That's a desire easily enough satisfied. So why wait? But my question for you, for me, for all of us is "What are you waiting for?" Or, to put it in a way that's been on my heart a lot lately, "What are you hungry for?" I'll admit it. Food is a weakness of mine. I'm thankful that God has given me an Energizer metabolism so I can kinda get away with it, but I love to eat. Too much. I love to satisfy cravings of my taste buds even when I am full. My belly is so often my god. It's because my focus is so small, so earthly. C. S. Lewis' familiar words sum me up so well: "Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased." What am I hungry for? A Snickers bar? Is that it? A bowl of ice cream or cereal? An entertaining novel? A movie? A moment of mere sexual pleasure? Is that really all I want?
My flesh answers, "Sure--why not? What else is there?" There's a lot more! There is more to be desired always while we wander on this earth. The ice cream and sex and thrilling views in pictures and sunsets are merely tastes of a much bigger reward. They are not the end, but the means. Just glimpses--like movie trailers. They're not the feature presentation, the main event. But they do point us to the Main Event. That's why we don't just renounce earthly pleasures altogether. We seek to use them for their proper purposes; after all, they are means. See, we can indulge ourselves to the deepest in these pleasures that we find all around us, but like Solomon discovered, we'll find them to be "futile," unfulfilling. They'll only leave us wanting more and yet sick from the gross mass that we've already gluttonously injested. We'll always be wanting more.
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy," Lewis again reminds us, "the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Or to put it like the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2, I was made for another Person: Jesus Christ, my God. In many places in Scripture the Lord's people are referred to as a wife or a bride. When Jesus was asked why His disciples did not fast, His response was to assure the questioner that they would fast "when the bridegroom is taken away from them."
Think about this: there are few days in a person's life so longed-for as his or her wedding day. I've heard many different stories of creative ways guys will work to save enough money for an engagement ring. And they'll work hard! Harder than for anything else. And when the engagement takes place, the couple begins counting down the days. Literally. You can ask almost any engaged couple, "Are you excited?" And they'll respond with a number of days. Suddenly these kids who can't make change without a computer on a cash register become genius calculators! And since when is a quantity of twenty-four hour spans a measurement for excitement? Since a bride-to-be sets her eyes on the happiest day of her life.
Being preoccupied with a day like your wedding day will change your life and make you do some very different things. But we are the Lord's bride to be! Are we preoccupied with this? Does it drive us to do crazy things like go without food so that we can tell Him how much we need Him and how desperately we long for Him to return? So often we live preoccupied with this dying, passing world and it's temporary pleasures. So often I forget that "I'm a refugee; this world is not my home." Or as another poet puts it, I am "created for a place I've never known."
So next time you think you might be hungry ask yourself, "What am I waiting for?" A Snickers bar? Or the happiest day of my life . . .
My flesh answers, "Sure--why not? What else is there?" There's a lot more! There is more to be desired always while we wander on this earth. The ice cream and sex and thrilling views in pictures and sunsets are merely tastes of a much bigger reward. They are not the end, but the means. Just glimpses--like movie trailers. They're not the feature presentation, the main event. But they do point us to the Main Event. That's why we don't just renounce earthly pleasures altogether. We seek to use them for their proper purposes; after all, they are means. See, we can indulge ourselves to the deepest in these pleasures that we find all around us, but like Solomon discovered, we'll find them to be "futile," unfulfilling. They'll only leave us wanting more and yet sick from the gross mass that we've already gluttonously injested. We'll always be wanting more.
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy," Lewis again reminds us, "the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Or to put it like the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2, I was made for another Person: Jesus Christ, my God. In many places in Scripture the Lord's people are referred to as a wife or a bride. When Jesus was asked why His disciples did not fast, His response was to assure the questioner that they would fast "when the bridegroom is taken away from them."
Think about this: there are few days in a person's life so longed-for as his or her wedding day. I've heard many different stories of creative ways guys will work to save enough money for an engagement ring. And they'll work hard! Harder than for anything else. And when the engagement takes place, the couple begins counting down the days. Literally. You can ask almost any engaged couple, "Are you excited?" And they'll respond with a number of days. Suddenly these kids who can't make change without a computer on a cash register become genius calculators! And since when is a quantity of twenty-four hour spans a measurement for excitement? Since a bride-to-be sets her eyes on the happiest day of her life.
Being preoccupied with a day like your wedding day will change your life and make you do some very different things. But we are the Lord's bride to be! Are we preoccupied with this? Does it drive us to do crazy things like go without food so that we can tell Him how much we need Him and how desperately we long for Him to return? So often we live preoccupied with this dying, passing world and it's temporary pleasures. So often I forget that "I'm a refugee; this world is not my home." Or as another poet puts it, I am "created for a place I've never known."
So next time you think you might be hungry ask yourself, "What am I waiting for?" A Snickers bar? Or the happiest day of my life . . .
