Confession time: I went on vacation and blew it with my eating.
After thinking about what happened, I realized what caused me to stumble: It was the lure of “new and improved food.”
What do I mean? When you travel, do you anticipate:
That’s what happened to me. What else can explain my desire to try a new restaurant that promised “gourmet grilled cheese?”
Now there isn’t anything wrong with eating “new and improved food” on vacation, but my problem was that I ate too much of it.
The definition of gluttony is an “over-consumption of food or drink to the point of waste.”
I wasted food by eating what my body did not need.
I feared that if I didn’t eat it then, I’d never get the opportunity to eat it again. That same fear of scarcity caused me to gain extreme amounts of weight when I had a job traveling.
But on vacation, I forgot about those consequences.
In a way, I was like the children of Israel in Numbers 11:4-6. God was feeding them with manna, but they complained about it. They said:
Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”
What is wrong with this picture? They forgot they were slaves in Egypt!
They may have eaten freely, but they were not free.
They suffered hard labor and Pharaoh was in control over their very lives.
They lived in fear for their male babies lives as Pharaoh had ordered them murdered as soon as they were born.
Isn’t sin just like that? You remember “the good times,” forgetting all the pain and grief that comes with it.
You may indulge your flesh freely, but you are not free. Doing so puts you in bondage.
Contrast the Israelites response with Jesus’ response in Matthew 4:1-4. Jesus had been fasting for 40 days; the Israelites had access to food, but their tongues craved something else.
Their only concern was satisfying themselves.
When the devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
In fact, in every temptation the devil presented to Jesus, Jesus responded with focus back to God rather than Himself:
I’ll be traveling again in a few months. Like Jesus, I desire to glorify God with the fruit of self-control in my eating.
That desire does not end when I go on vacation!
This is an agreement I’ve made with myself to settle this issue:
I have the mind of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:16 and Romans 7:25).
I am telling you all of this to be accountable to you. With God’s help, I won’t let the lure of “new and improved food” hook me again.
In the meantime, I’ll keep sharing the lessons God continues to teach me. We can do this together!
Kimberly Taylor
www.takebackyourtemple.com
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Love the truth revealed in the word of God and the word of your testimony! Thank you for being real and transparent and continuing to allow the word of God to shape and form you. I am grateful for your ministry!