6:47pm
Walking home. Few feet from my door. It had been a long day. 13 minutes before my fast is over and I can enjoy that curry chicken patiently waiting for me in the fridge. Maybe my thoughts have wandered and settled on this plate during the course of the day, but the Lord is good! He has kept me through this fast so that I barely hungered.
I reach my door, I can almost taste the food in my mouth as I walk in. Excited to eat to the glory of God. And then- in my excitement about the food- I remember something I have to do. I have to pray. Just one more time of prayer then I am free to enjoy my dinner. I walk to my prayer closet when a stinging thought smacks me in the face:
“Are you more excited to eat the physical food or the spiritual food ?
I am stopped dead in my tracks. The questions resounds in my heart but doesn’t sound any better. Perhaps worse this time. Surely I remember the words of our General who says:
“...Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” John 6:27
More of His words come to mind...
“Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” John 6:35
Surely feasting on the bread of life and drinking of the water of life involves believing in the One who was sent and communing with Him. Prayer is one of the primary means by which we taste this eternal water and this bread of life.
Had prayer become just a means to get to my ultimate desired end (eating the food that perishes and drinking water from which one will always thirst ?). Should not the end in all our endeavors be to feast on eternal water and the eternal bread?
In rushing through the eternal meal to get to the temporal meal, I have spurned diamonds for dung!
Herein lies the foolishness of the human heart (even the believing heart). What I was really excited about was the feasting on the food that will never satisfy. Prayer was just the thing on my checklist to do before I can have communion with my true love (curry chicken). Rushing through a scenic view of the deep blue ocean to go enjoy a swimming pool. Rushing through the actual steak dinner to go fantasize over pictures of the menu.
Oh God, please break our hearts for you. Let us delight in you above all else. Purge us from all worthless religion. Let us realize that the end of all this is you. Let our hearts truly delight in you. Lord make us always eager to eat that which truly satisfies.
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