“For people born in Egypt, raised in Egypt, and schooled in Egypt, the only way to taste the milk and honey is to get out of Egypt.” (p. 23)
It was about this time that the Lord really began speaking to me about my problem with food. Chapter three-Change of Taste was just one of the things that seemed to use food and desires as it’s illistration. The message was all around me. God was trying to get my attention.
Priscilla uses some great anologies. The Egyptian Tour Package is one of my favs. I laughed out loud when I read it! “Yet every now and then, especially when life gets unusually hard and when I feel restless from the sameness and boredom of a particularly dull patch, the enemy tries to remind me of the so-called perks that came with my Egyptian tour package.” (p. 28) My “tour package” would be all those yummy high calorie foods that offer empty calories and no healthy benefit. (Nachoes, candy bars, milk shakes, chips and dip….. okay I have to stop now. Egypt is calling my name a bit to loudly!)
But just like the children of Israel who had to learn to come off of the rich food that Eypgt offered, I have to learn to turn away from those high calorie foods that offer empty calories and no healthy benefit. “But when they started to realize that the open road was a daily exercise routine in trusting God to provide what they needed, it wasn’t long before they lost themselves in the seafood-scented nostalgia of Egypt’s dietary plan.” (p. 28) The Israelites begin to long for the food they had back in Egypt. Even though that food came with a price. I face the same dilimia. The food I crave isn’t the best for me. It hurts me physically in the long run.
“We’re not always totally convinced that God has a match for some of the things that made bondage feel deceptively satisfying.” This is another statement from the book that rocked me to the core. Do I trust God to truly satisfy me? Do the truths I know about God really hold up? I had to re-read the statement several times to “see” that it is deceptively satisfying. Have you noticed, like I have, sin leaves you feeling flat later? “What are some of the aromas from your past that have a way of wafting through your living room, enticing you right in the middle of your journey from Egypt with soft memories of what made salvery so hard to forsake?” (p.29)
Bam! “Like us, they tended to forget that Pharaoh’s only reason for infusing any form of enjoyment into their day was to make his slave population strong enough to be useful in building his ‘storage cities’ (Exod. 1:11)” (p. 29) That sound you heard was another rock being tossed at my core. God is surely getting my attention.
Pricsilla boils it down to what the problem really is. “The problem is with wanting what the enemy offered instead of the now thing God is providing.. The problem is in letting the satisfaction of physical appetites take priority over what God is trying to teach us about being satisfied in Him.” (p. 30) Ouch!
It’s amazing how God works things together. In Lysa TerKurest, book and Bible study, Made to Crave, her catch phrase is “Made to Crave, satisfying your deepest desires with God, not food.” The whole study revoloves around this idea. So reading this book at the same time was by God’s timing!
In the next section of the chapter, Priscilla goes on to reveal that God’s manna was His soloution for the Isrealites. And for us. God’s daily manna was a symbol of Jesus Christ. “ He is our “bread of life” (John 6:48). He is heaven’s ultimate manna. And while the manna of the wilderness could not provide eternal life, the living “bread” (v.50) did and will to anyone who will receive it. He is God’s miraculous portion given not to bore us but to show us a little more of Himself every day.” (p. 33) A verse I’ve memoried in my wilderness journey is Lamentations 3:21-25
“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. 25The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”
The longer I travel this wilderness road the more I am learning that God’s manna is satifying. It will take a while for my fleshy desires to disapate, but in the meantime I am willing to learn. “God seemed eager, didn’t He, to get the taste and desire for sin out of their lives-just as He desires to get it out of ours-so that we can become “wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.” (p. 34) I’m thrilled that God is so eager to cleans me of the sin that I have held on to. I’m thankful that Christ died so that this sin wouldn’t separate me from Him for eternity.
No comments:
Post a Comment